THE 

PEOPLE'S CHRIST 



A VOLUME OF SERMONS AND OTHER 
ADDRESSES AND PAPERS 



BY THE 




EEV. LOUIS ALBERT BANKS, D.D. 



OF 00fs]3, 



MAY 2 1891, 



BOSTON 1891 
LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS 

10 MILK STBEET NEXT " THE OLD SOUTH MEETING-HOUSE " 



\ . AX 




Copyright, 1891, by Louis Albert Banks 



All rights reserved 



THE PEOPLE'S CHRIST 



S. J. PARKHILL & CO., PRINTERS 
BOSTON 



TO 

JKs Wife, 

WHO HAS BEEN A SYMPATHETIC HELPMEET IN ALL 
THE CARES OF MY MINISTRY, 

^fjis Folutne 

IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 



INTRODUCTION". By the Rev. Charles Paek- 

HUEST, D.D., Editoe *'Zion's Heeald" . . 7 

SERMONS. 

I. Cheist's Welcome foe the Ceowd ... 13 

II. Cheist and the Woeking-man .... 31 

III. Cheist and the Woeking-woman . . , 45 

IV. Cheist and the Sick 61 

V. The Cheistian's Hoeizon 76 

YI. Petee and his Methods at Pentecost . 87 

YII. Our Sistee Phoeue, the Deaconess . . 97 

VIII. Spieitual Natuealization 109 

IX. The Soueces of Ameeican National Life, 119 

X. OuE Beothee in Red 134 

SERMON FRAGMENTS. 

I. The Weeckage and Salvage of Modeen 

Cities . . . . , 150 

II. Cheist's Sympathy foe Cities .... 155 

III. "In Daekest England," with Boston 

Applications 159 

IV. The Mission of the Inkhoen 162 



6 CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Y. The Victory and Promise of American 

Patriotism 167 

VI. The Extravagance and Brutality of 

Modern Sports 170 

VII. The Causes of Suicide 174 

VIII. The Age of the Liar 177 

IX. The Struggle between the American 

AND Foreign Sabbath 179 

X. No Mission to Ghosts 181 

MISCELLANEOUS. 

I. HiNDERANCES TO REVIVALS 184 

(An Address delivered at the Annual Meeting 
of the Evangelical Alliance of Boston, in 
Tremont Temple, January 14, 1889.) 

II. NOWITKAN, THE HeRMIT OF THE SkAGIT . 193 

III. Methodism among the Nootsacks . . . 198 

IV. Personal Experiences in the Anti- 

Chinese Riots 202 

V. The Little Yellow Man's Claim on the 

American Christian 210 

VI. A Sunday with the Anti-Chinese Mob in 

Seattle 216 



INTRODUCTION 



10 be invited to a place beside the author of 



this volume, and to present him to the 
reading public, is a delightful privilege. 

He is a notable co-worker with his ministerial 
brethren in the Christian Church. Therefore, 
to assist, in the slightest degree, in enlarging 
his sphere of usefulness, becomes a pleasurable 
duty. As he is a trusted and beloved friend, 
these lines are inspired by happy associations, 
and will be written with great frankness. 

Rev. Louis Albert Banks, D.D., commands 
our approval as a minister of the gospel, be- 
cause of certain strongly marked personal 
qualities. 

His Serviceahleness. — " The mind that was 
in Christ " is apprehended. The Master said, 
" I am among you as he that serveth ; " and also, 
" Let him that is greatest among you be your 
servant." Dr. Banks has clearly caught this idea 




8 



INTKODUCTION 



of service as the essence of the gospel of Christ. 
To serve the people, through his church as 
the channel of communication, is his absorbing 
purpose. To this end neither time, nor strength, 
nor any resources at his command, are spared. 
A single ambition possesses him, and that is to 
be a successful minister of Jesus Christ unto 
men. Combined with such devotion to his call- 
ing, there is utter indifference to the collateral 
honors and ecclesiastical preferments which are 
so highly esteemed and strongly coveted by 
many. 

His Adaptahility. — Rare are the men who so 
well understand the age and its needs, the peo- 
ple, and how to apply the gospel to them. He 
is a minister of the people, and presents the 
" People's Christ." The title of this volume is, 
therefore, fitly chosen. He ardently believes 
that the gospel is the power of God unto salva- 
tion, here and now. 

The simplicity and strength of his faith are 
greatly to be envied. His glad confidence 
in the efficacy of this gospel for the refor- 
mation of the most debased, is never disturbed. 
Thoroughly has he diagnosed human life at 



INTRODUCTION 



9 



tlie ordinary level, and he lives in closest sym- 
pathy with it. In his personal and church life 
he is ever bringing the power of the gospel in 
some new and impressive way to bear upon the 
people. He is made all things to all men, that 
he may by all means save some. In the glow 
of such consecration lies the secret, in no small 
degree, of the remarkable fertility of resources 
which he exhibits. Consecrated ingenuity is 
largely the result of concentration upon such a 
sublime purpose. He has a genius for the 
selection of topics for the pulpit. In study- 
ing the people and the newspapers, which 
are the best reflectors of current life and 
thought, with the Bible, so many subjects for 
pulpit treatment are suggested to him, that he 
is able to use but a small proportion of the 
whole number selected. How to reach the 
masses, is the question which most vexes 
the godly ministers of Christendom. Our friend 
has permanently solved the problem. The value . 
of this volume to the Christian public will de- 
pend upon the degree to which Dr. Banks has 
made clear the way in which he presents Christ 
to the people, and his methods of work. 



10 



INTRODUCTION 



His Optimism. — We should most lamentably 
fail to portray our friend, if we did not mention 
the fact that he is one of the most hopeful and 
cheerful of men. In fraternal familiarity we 
have never had occasion to chide him except 
for incessant overwork. And yet he is always 
bubbling over with life and good cheer. He 
carries with him an inexhaustible supply of 
exuberance, which overflows to gladden every 
circle into which he enters. With his presence 
are associated the hon mot, the piquant repartee, 
and the heartiest good feeling. Gloom and 
melancholy must vanish when he appears. He 
makes no place for a religion of sighs and cen- 
sure. His type of piety is healthy, vigorous, 
and always joyous. Not a little of the remark- 
able influence which he exerts upon the people 
is traceable to this attractive characteristic. 

Is the interested reader of this volume anxious 
for a word even more personal concerning the 
preacher and his liistory ? 

At sixteen years of age he commenced to 
preach the gospel in Washington Territory, 
and many were converted. From seventeen to 
twenty-one, he taught school and studied law, 



INTEODUCTION 



11 



being admitted to practise in the courts. He 
received his first regular appointment from 
Bishop Gilbert Haven, and was stationed at 
Portland, Oregon. Fearless as a reformer in 
his pulpit, he has been shot down by the infuri- 
ated saloonist, and mobbed by the anti-Chinese 
rioters. As the present pastor of St. John's 
Methodist Episcopal Church, South Boston, he 
has been favored with remarkable success. 
Thirty-five years of age, tall, of vigorous form, 
pleasant and intelligent face, never clerical but 
always frank, open-hearted, and manly, the 
reader would greatly enjoy a chat with him. 
Confident that such acquaintance with him, in 
his spirit, thought, and methods, as the perusal 
of this volume would impart, will be productive 
of good to the reader in making larger place for 
the Christ of the common people, we joyfully 
share in sending it forth to the general public. 

Charles Parkhurst. 

Office of Zion's Herald, 
Boston, Mass. 



THE PEOPLE'S CHRIST 



I 



CHEIST'S WELCOME FOE THE CEOWD 



"And the apostles, when they returned, declared unto 
him what things they had done. And he took them, and 
withdrew apart to a city called Bethsaida. But the multi- 
tudes perceiving it followed him : and he welcomed them, ' 
and spake to them of the kingdom of God, and them that 
had need of healing he healed. And the day began to wear 
away; and the twelve came, and said unto him. Send the 
multitude away, that they may go into the villages and coun- 
try round about, and lodge, and get victuals : for we are 
here in a desert place. But he said unto them, Give ye 
them to eat. And they said. We have no more than five 
loaves and two fishes; except we should go and buy food for 
all this people. For they were about five thousand men. 
And he said unto his disciples, Make them sit down in 
companies, about fifty each. And they did so, and made 
them all sit down. And he took the five loaves and the 
two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed them, and 
brake; and gave to the disciples to set before the multitude. 
And they did eat, and were all filled : and there was taken 
up that which remained over to them of broken pieces, 
twelve baskets." — Revised Version, Luke ix. 10-17. 

nnmS picture brings out in strong coloring 



the attitude of Jesus toward the common 
people. He had gone aside into a quiet place 
for private conversation with his disciples. The 
multitude, perceiving this, were anxious and 
fearful lest he should escape them altogether. 




14 



THE people's CHRIST 



There were among them many sick people, 
blind, and lame, and deaf, who had been at- 
tracted by the fame of the Saviour ; and when 
they saw Jesus stealing away with his disciples, 
they doubtless felt as if their last hope was 
perishing. Life was a weary burden if healing 
and help were not found in Jesus. The 
Saviour's reception of them was characteristic. 
How easy it would have been to send back a 
committee of the disciples to inform the crowd 
that the Master was weary, needed rest, and 
desired to be alone with his intimate friends; 
and how natural from a human standpoint! 
But Jesus never saved himself at the expense 
of the poor and the suffering. He turns to them 
with words of welcome, talks with them of the 
kingdom of God, heals those who are sick, and 
when they are tired out and hungry turns the 
desert place into a picnic-ground for their com- 
fort. IMay we not find a lesson in this picture 
for us to-day ? The hope of the multitude now, 
as then, is in Jesus. Civilization and progress 
among the masses of the people must have 
motive-power from heaven. As ex-President 
Woolsey of Yale once said, " We might as well 
expect a locomotive to leave its place, and go 
safely across field and forest without steam or a 
road, as to hope for the upbuilding of society 
without the energizing power of Jesus Christ." 



cheist's welcome for the ceowd 15 

Our cities to-day are acknowledged by every- 
body to be centres of disorder and danger. 
Christianity must have some message of wel- 
come and hope for the crowd. It is a very 
common thing, even among those who are accus- 
tomed to speak kindly of their individual ac- 
quaintances, to speak with contempt of humanity 
at large, as though it were a sort of common 
herd, unworthy of notice. Jesus had no petu- 
lance or contempt for the crowd. We have 
scarcely an instance recorded of his coming in 
contact with a large gathering of people, but 
what is added, "He had compassion on the 
multitude." The common people heard Jesus 
gladly. The poor found in him a brother. Then, 
as now, the great majority of men were poor. 
Until the coming of Jesus, to be poor and forced 
to toil with one's hands was to be a slave, not 
only in fact, but in the public mind. Christ 
made poverty no more a degradation. Mark 
Guy Pearse says, " Of all men who ever lived, 
Jesus Christ alone had any choice in the circum- 
stances of his birth, and he chose the poorest lot 
and the hardest fare that ever befell any man. 
Henceforth poverty was no part of Divine dis- 
favor. He who became poor was the well- 
beloved Son, in whom the Father was well 
pleased. What wicked folly we utter when we 
talk as if the 'providential path' was always 



16 



THE people's CHRIST 



one where men made their fortunes, and as if 
we could measure God's goodness by the income. 
Jesus Christ took away the reproach of poverty. 
No more should any follower of Christ think 
poverty was dull, ignorant, unconscious, and 
incapable of any higher development, shut out 
from wisdom and grace and the sublimer aspect 
of things. But, alas ! to-day the great example 
does not affect men's estimate of poverty. . . . 
J esus Christ lowered the greatness of wealth by 
passing it by, and uplifted and hallowed the life 
of poverty by deliberately accepting it." 

The entire life of Jesus tended to revolution- 
ize the public estimate of the worth of humanity ; 
that manhood, not titles, wealth, or power, were 
of supreme or even important worth. 

If the Church of to-day is to be followed by 
the masses of men, it must have the same rever- 
ence for humanity, and the same brotherliness 
of spirit. 

Well does Professor De Lave! eye declare in 
the April Forum : " On the day that Christ said 
to the woman of Samaria, ' The hour cometh 
when ye shall neither in this mountain nor yet 
at Jerusalem worsliip the Father, but when true 
worshippers shall worship him in spirit and in 
truth,' was founded the true religion of hu- 
manity, the eternal and universal religion, irre- 
spective of nationalities, doctrines, and dogmas. 



Christ's welcome for the crowd 17 

The Sermon on the Mount can never be sur- 
passed. In Christ's teachings worship and dog- 
mas have very little place. The love of God as 
the type of all that is perfect, love for fellow- 
men, and charity to all, — this sums up the 
doctrine. ' Be ye therefore perfect, as my Father 
which is in heaven is perfect,' and 'Love thy 
neighbor as thyself ; ' on these commandments, 
are we not told, hang the law and the prophets ? 
The poorer classes who have abandoned Chris- 
tianity will return to it again when they have 
once been made to understand that it brings 
them equality and freedom ; whereas . atheism 
and materialism simply sanction their slavery, 
sacrificing them to certain pretended natural 
laws. The gospel of Christ, the ' good tidings ' 
for the poor, would put an end to all our eco- 
nomic difficulties, if the spirit of brotherhood 
and charity therein taught were generally under- 
stood and practised." 

1. 

Jesus had a welcome for the heavily bur- 
dened and discouraged ones. So must we, his 
followers. The city and the whole land are full 
of burdened lives, — men and women who have 
fought in the battle of life and been worsted, 
who are disappointed and discouraged, who are 
out of employment and out of means, and know 



18 



THE people's CHEIST 



not where to turn to earn their bread. Some 
people imagine that every honest man or woman 
can readily find employment in this country. 
I once had a theory like that myself, — that it 
was only the lazy and the criminal that chose to 
be idle ; but actual experience in the midst of 
the tide of the city has shattered my theory : it 
has gone down like a house built upon the sand. 

Nothing has added to my heartache so much 
in the past few years as the efforts of honest 
men and women, who were true to God and 
their own consciences, spurning the bread that 
had the taint of the rum-traffic on it, yet unable 
for weeks at a time to find any employment. 

A leading city journal vouches for this inci- 
dent : — 

" A respectable-appearing man was before the 
judge of the police court. 'Your honor,' said 
he, ' I am a fair mechanic, and have been in this 
city several weeks unable to find work. My 
money is gone, and I can find nothing to do. I 
have been willing to work, but no one whom 
I found would give me any. I cannot beg, and 
[here the tears came to his eyes]. Judge, I 
won't steal. For God's sake send me some- 
where, anywhere, where I Avill be out of the 
cold. I can't sleep at the stations, and I don't 
want to.' 

"'Well, my good man,' said the justice, 'I 



chkist's welcome for the ceowd 19 

can only send you to the jail, and in order to do 
so you must be charged with disorderly con- 
duct.' 

' I suppose, your honor, it is disorderly con- 
duct to be as poor as I am.' 

" ' That is not what I mean,' said the justice ; 
'I only want to be fair and just with you.' 

" ' Just and fair ; that's it^ your honor. This 
world is given to justice and fairness. When I 
ask for work, they tell me that they have none. 
If I ask for bread, I am called a tramp. I am 
glad there is some one here who wants to be 
fair and just.' 

" ' Well,' said the justice, ' I will place a fine 
of thirty dollars against you, which will give 
you two months in the house of correction, 
where at least you will be warm and have 
enough to eat.' 

" ' God bless you, Judge! ' was the prisoner's 
response ; and he was taken back down-stairs." 

What a commentary is an incident like that 
on our present social system ! 

Well does the editor of the Christian Union 
say : " The time will come when it will be 
thought amazing that a Christian State should 
ever have existed that provided self-supporting 
labor for a thief, and refused to provide it for 
an honest man. Poverty is not a crime. Ina- 
bility to earn a living is not a crime. No won- 



20 



THE people's CHRIST 



der that under a system which treats them as 
crimes, crime increases." 

The most recent statistics show that we have 
nearly, or quite, 500,000 criminals in the United 
States ; of this 500,000, more than one-third, or 
167,000, are under twenty years of age ; that 
more than 250,000 are under twenty-one years 
of age ; and that more than 333,000 are under 
twenty-two years of age. 

The Chi'istian Church must do something 
more than stand back aghast at these figures. 
It must have some message of hope and wel- 
come toward a better life for these young men 
and women who are being overthrown and de- 
stroyed by the fiercest temptations known to 
humanity. 

There is a conviction on the part of a vast 
majority of laboring, burdened men and women, 
that the churches are selfish, caring only for 
their own interests. However unfounded this 
conviction may be in many instances, the fact 
remains. The burden lies upon the church to 
overcome this conviction and remove it by the 
warmth of its sympathy and welcome. 

An English clergyman writing in the Nine- 
teenth Century gives this reason why the poorer 
working people do not go to church : " They 
see the churches well built and nearly always 
shut up ; they see the public houses, towering 



cheist's welcome for the ceowd 21 



above their own small houses, blazing at every 
turn, and always open; they see their own 
small rooms, often badly built, always too small 
for even their little furniture and often large 
families." 

Now, is not that a good picture of what exists 
in Boston ? Here are a few scores of churches 
nearly always shut up. From two to three days 
in the week would be a high average for the 
time they are open. 

On the other hand, there are hundreds of 
saloons open all the time. 

There is a need of a revolution in our use of 
our church buildings. No business firm could 
exist and waste its resources as do most of our 
churches. I hope to live to see the day when 
this church, and every other church like it in 
our towns and cities, shall stand open day and 
night, lighted and warmed, full of welcome 
and hope, a veritable beacon-light to every 
poor and oppressed man or woman on our 
streets. 

A brother clergyman gives this suggestive 
incident in the Methodist Times of London : — 

" Some time ago I was going down a main 
thoroughfare of the city in which I then re- 
sided, when I saw some twenty or thirty men 
who were at work in some way about the road, 
laying drains, or something of that sort. It 



22 



THE people's CHEIST 



was the dinner-hour, and tliere in the pelting 
rain they sat eating their provision, — about as 
dreary and cheerless a set as one could see. In 
that road within a mile there were no less than 
five places of worship ; but the very nearest 
was that of which I was then the minister. I 
at once got the schoolroom opened, and bade 
the men welcome, promised it should be at their 
service so long as they were anywhere near, and 
had a fire at which they could warm their coffee 
and themselves. I told them that they were at 
perfect liberty to smoke after dinner ; but the 
whole time not a man lit his pipe within the 
walls : it was the instinct of a true gentleman 
awakened by a little act of kindness. When 
their work lay further down the road, another 
place was similarly opened to receive them. 
Now comes the interesting part of the story. 
On the Sunday some of these men walked a long 
way and endured the infliction of a sermon from 
me, because, as one explained, ' You see, one 
good turn deserves another.' I certainly much 
appreciated the kindness of that good turn. Of 
this be sure, though it was so little a matter, — 
a cost of half a crown for extra cleaning cov- 
ering the whole outlay, — those men will hence- 
forth carry a more kindly feeling towards the 
religion of Jesus Christ." 

Only by a like appeal to the common broth- 



cheist's welcome foe the ceowd 23 

erhood of tlie masses of men and women can we 
hope to win them to the Church, and through 
the Church to our Saviour and King. 

II. 

Jesus had a welcome for sinners. I do not 
mean respectable, titled, high-toned, wealthy, 
powerful sinners, whom most people flatter and 
fawn upon, but disgraced, unknown, friendless 
sinners. 

For illustration, remember the poor sinful 
woman who was about to be stoned to death 
by the mob, and Jesus mildly said, " Let him 
that is without sin cast the first stone." They 
all slunk away, like the cowards they were. 
Jesus turned to the woman with a hopeful 
word, " Go, and sin no more." 

Or, that other case when Jesus had been 
invited to dinner at the house of the rich Phari- 
see, and a wicked woman of the town, but 
penitent for her sin, came into his presence, and 
washed his feet with her tears, and wiped them 
with the hairs of her head. I want to say a 
word of justice for those Pharisees ; for, do you 
know, I think they showed more patience and 
forbearance than the average dinner-party in 
Boston would show if the same scene were to 
be reproduced in our time. True, they were 
shocked and astonished, and questioned the 



24 



THE people's CHRIST 



propriety of it; but we do not read that one 
of them left the room. 

Does anybody believe that from a company 
of our modern society people, even in religious 
circles, there would not have been a more em- 
phatic protest against such a vulgar " pro- 
ceeding ? 

Nothing is in stronger contrast between the 
spirit of Jesus and much of our modern Chris- 
tianity, than our indifference to the salvation of 
this class of sinful but immortal souls. Society 
is cruelly unjust. It stretches out its hand to 
the sinning man who has led his sister woman 
down to ruin, but almost boastfully speaks of 
shutting the iron door " against his victim. 
But there was no iron door between Jesus and 
these poor, sinful souls. I do press it upon the 
hearts of Christian women, that it is your im- 
perative duty to hold out a Christ-like hand of 
welcome and of hope to every penitent fallen 
woman. 

Multitudes in our churches are always ex- 
pressing a desire to do something for Jesus, 
yet refusing every practical opportunity. Mar- 
garet Preston paints a sad but suggestive poetic 
picture, that is very true to life : — 

" If I had dwelt," — so mused a tender woman, 

All fine emotions stirred 
Tlirougli pondering o'er that Life, divine yet human, 

Told in the Sacred Word, — 



cheist's welcome foe the ceowd 25 



" If I had dwelt of old, a Jewish maiden, 

In some Judsean street 
Where Jesus walked, and heard His word so laden 

With comfort strangely sweet, — 

" And seen the face where utmost pity blended 

With each rebuke of wrong, 
I would have left ray lattice, and descended 

And followed with the throng. 

" If I had been the daughter, jewel-girdled, 

Of some rich rabbi there ; 
Seeing the sick, blind, halt, my blood had curdled 

At sight of such despair; 

And I had wrenched the sapphires from my fillet, 
Nor let one spark remain ; 
Snatched up my gold, amid the crowd to spill it, 
For pity of their pain; 

" I would have let the palsied fingers hold me; 

I would have walked between 
The Marys and Salome, while they told me 

About the Magdalene. 

" ' Foxes have holes,' — I think my heart had broken 

To hear the words so said ; 
While Christ had not — were sadder ever spoken ? — 

' A place to lay His head ! ' 

" I would have flung abroad my doors before Him, 

And in my joy have been 
First on the threshold, eager to adore Him, 

And crave His entrance in! " 

Ah, would you so ? Without a recognition, 

You passed Him yesterday ; 
Jostled aside, unhelped, His mute petition, 

And calmly went your way. 



26 



THE people's CHRIST 



With warmth and comfort garmented and girdled, 

Before your window-sill 
Sweep heart-sick crowds — and if your blood is curdled, 

You wear your jewels still. 

You catch aside your robes, lest want should clutch them 

In its implorings wild ; 
Or lest some woeful penitent might touch them, 

And you be thus defiled. 

0 dreamers, dreaming that your faith is keeping 

All service free from blot I 
Christ daily walks your streets, sick, suffering, weeping. 
And ye perceive Him not! 

" He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." 

The great demand of the hour is for the 
Church to get and keep the heart of the com- 
mon people. The future of this and every 
age is in the hands of the toiling multitudes, 
and not the privileged few. 

Jesus proved to John his divinity by "preach- 
ing the gospel to the poor." Let us follow in 
the footsteps of our Master. 

1 love the Methodist Church. I am thankful 
to God for her history and her victories ; she 
has no more loyal son in all her borders. And 
my highest ambition for Methodism is that she 
shall keep true to her Master, and keep close to 
the throbbing hearts of the people. 

Nearly all our converts, in the early years of 
Methodism, were from the poorest class of daily 
toilers ; and throughout our whole history we 



cheist's welcome for the crowd 27 

have had greatest success when we have been 
true to our mission and kept close to the heart 
of the common people. 

At a great Wesleyan missionary meeting in 
London, the Rev. Thomas Champness related a 
suggestive incident. A number of years ago 
there was a family of farmers in the north of 
England ; they were not prosperous, and were 
so poor that the sons emigrated. The only 
daughter went out to seek a situation. She 
became, not a governess, not a companion, but a 
straightforward, honest servant girl. This girl 
felt it a nobler thing to go and work in a big 
town and earn wages as a servant girl than to 
idle at home ; and one day, when she was clean- • 
ing the steps, a bricklayer fellow came up. He 
saw this nice girl cleaning the steps, and he 
said, " I must see her again." So he managed 
to find out what place of worship she went to, 
and it turned out to be the Methodist chapel, 
and so he said, " I'll go there." When he 
went there for something he liked, he got 
something he did not like ; he found out he was 
a sinner needing a Saviour. He also found out 
that this girl did not much care to talk to him 
so long as his heart was not right with God. 
He gave himself to Jesus Christ, and then 
asked her if he might come and see her a bit, 
and so " they made it up." I suppose there is a 



28 



THE people's CHEIST 



more euplionious way of expressing it, but you 
understand wliat I mean. They got married, 
and he worked at his trade for some time. He 
kept on saving money, till by and by he said, 
" I shall build a house for myself." His ambi- 
tion w^as to have a house fit to receive the 
Methodist preachers. He built this house, and 
when it was finished he took his wife and chil- 
dren in a sort of beautiful procession to enter 
it via the front door, and when he got there he 
said to his wife, "Do you see those steps?" 
And she said, " I do." " Those were the steps 
thee wert cleaning when I first saw thee. The 
master's house was pulled down, and I went to 
the auction and bought thjB steps. I said, 
'When thee hast a house of thine own, these 
steps shall be in the front ; ' " and up those steps 
have walked Dr. Newton, Dr. Bunting, and the 
great and mighty men of the Methodist past — 
those steps that that woman cleaned. It is too 
long a stor}^ to tell, but her son went into busi- 
ness with his father — a smart Methodist lad and 
local preacher — and he said one day to his father, 
" We mustn't always be working like this ; we 
must make some more money. Why shouldn't 
we buy a clay-field and make our own bricks ? " 
The father said, " Very well," and they bought 
a field of clay which turned out to be a very 
mine of gold. Some of the best bricks in Eng- 



Christ's welcome for the crowd 29 

land were made there ; it made their fortune. 
And the son of the woman who cleaned the steps 
became one of the greatest financial bulwarks 
of the English Methodism of his day. 

God will take care of the Church which cares 
for the girl that cleans the steps. 

A few years ago our Methodist papers were 
ringing with deserved tributes to David Preston, 
the Methodist banker and philanthropist, of 
Detroit. Ministers from half a dozen States 
attended his funeral, and he was carried to his 
grave like the prince he was. Thirty-eight 
years before, David Preston entered Detroit on 
foot, a homeless lad, twelve dollars in debt, and 
went to work at twelve dollars a month. Some 
Methodist preacher looked after the poor boy, 
and made him welcome to his humble place of 
worship. Little did that preacher dream that 
he was giving welcome to a coming man, who 
should, out of his liberality, give to Methodism 
one of its greatest churches in the nation, and 
whose shoulder should be under every great 
burden the denomination was to lift for a 
quarter of a century. 

The hope of Methodism for the future is in 
the railroad shops, the iron foundries, the facto- 
ries, the stores, the places of toil where laboring 
boys and girls are earning their bread. 

May God fill our own hearts with a spirit of 



30 



THE people's CHEIST 



welcome, until it shall be impossible for any- 
body to live on this South Boston peninsula 
without knowing that every toiling man, woman, 
and child is not only welcome to the best we 
have, but is earnestly sought after and desired. 

The Church is not to be a fortress manned by 
a self-indulgent band, seeking only refuge and 
ease and salvation for themselves, but rather a 
marching army, keeping step to the bugle-notes 
of Jesus. " Go out quickly into the streets and 
lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, 
and maimed, and blind, and lame." And yet 
again : " Go out into the highways and hedges, 
and constrain them to come in, that my house 
may be filled." 



CHEIST AND THE WOEKING-MAN 31 



IL 

CHEIST AND THE WOEKING-MAN^ 

" Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, 
and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and 
learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall 
find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my 
burden is light." — Matt. ii. 28-30. 

TTTHAT is Christianity worth to Boston? 

' ^ That is the question we are to ask and pon- 
der in this series of discourses. What is Chris- 
tianity doing to make the lives of men and women 
and children happier and nobler than they would 
be without it? The question is not, what has 
Christianity done for the race at large, not what 
impulse has it given to civilization in general, 
but rather, what is it doing to help the phases 
of human need that present themselves to the 
people of Boston, in the year of our Lord 1890 ? 
The appeal must be to the facts. When the 
disciples of John came to Jesus, desiring to 
know if he was the Messiah, he threw them back 
upon the facts which appealed to their own eyes 
and ears : " Go show John the things ye do see 

1 The three following discourses were delivered in a series of 
sermons on " Christianity in Boston." 



32 



THE people's CHRIST 



and hear ; tlie blind receive tlieir siglit, the lame 
walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the 
dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel 
preached unto them." The appeal must be the 
same to-day. We must search the living facts, 
and not past traditions, for the answer. Every 
age must produce its own evidences of Chris- 
tianity. 

I invite you, for a few Sunday evenings, to 
pursue with me a frank and earnest investiga- 
tion of the evidences of Christianity; not as 
they appear in the learned tomes of the scholar's 
library, but as they appear in the churches, 
homes, schools, workshops, hospitals, and com- 
plicated network of the daily life of the people 
that make up this bustling human hive which 
we call Boston. 

Coming then to our first theme, " Christ and 
the Working-man," I invite you to notice the 
daring invitation of Jesus to the toilers of 
earth : " Come unto me, all ye that labor and are 
heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take 
my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am 
meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest 
unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my 
burden is light." 

. That was a brave challenge. Jesus stood in 
the midst of the burden-bearers of Palestine. 
The majority, there as everywhere, were poor 



CHKIST AND THE WORKING-MAN 33 

working people. Jesus looked over this crowd of 
burden-bearers — women with heavy water-pots 
on shoulder or head, men bending under loads 
of fuel or fish or merchandise, people who knew 
what burdens meant, and what it was to be tired 
from overloading — and he uttered this bold 
challenge. They were words of real prophecy, if 
you take them in the most earthly and literal 
sense only. Think of it as you go out into the 
street to-night, as you look up through the clear 
white electric light, and consider how much 
better it is for the laboring men of Boston to 
have the benefit of that splendid illumination, 
rather than to be compelled to carry each man 
his own torch, or his little lamp fastened around 
his ankle, that he may find his path through the 
darkness. Think of it when you enter your 
home, and open the faucet, and the pure water 
bursts out of the wall at your touch, as it burst 
from the desert rock of old, under the rod of 
Moses. Think of it, and thank God for the 
challenge of Jesus ! 

The miracles of Judsea are the every-day expe- 
rience of Christian Boston. But remember, it 
is only the cities which have come under the 
touch of Christianity, that have made these 
giant strides in the arts of life. Let us look 
around us, and see in what other way Christ is 
manifesting his sympathy with the working-men 
of Boston. 



34 



THE people's CHEIST 



Here, for example, is a young man wlio came 
down last week from the old farm in Vermont, 
or from the carpenter shop in St. John, N.B., 
and it may be, for the sake of the dear name of 
3'our old town, that yon are half homesick for, 
you have come in here to St. John's Church to- 
night. You are to be a working-man in Boston. 
You have your two hands, your honest purpose, 
and your clean blood, inherited from good, hon- 
est, hard-working parents, for capital. 

Don't undervalue that capital. Franklin, 
Lincoln, Garfield, Grant, and a host of others, 
have stored up an inexhaustible bank account 
with the American people, with no other capital 
to begin with than that. You are here to face 
the new world of the city, to earn your bread, 
to win a home, to live your life, to do the best 
for yourself, to fill your place in jom: age. 
Now what does Christianity do to meet 
you as a young worldng-man, that ought to 
attract your attention, awaken j'our interest, 
and arouse your gratitude ? Well, in the first 
place, my brother, Christianity has built this 
church, lighted it with welcome, and hung its 
cards of invitation on the streets, that you might 
see them and come in. It stationed me in the 
corridor, that, at the very tln^eshold, you might 
have a hand-shake of brotherhood and a word of 
cheer. It stations me in tliis pulpit, and the 



CHEIST AND THE WOEKIN G-MAN 35 

choir in yonder gallery, that you, taking up 
these new burdens on your untried shoulders, 
might be soothed in sjDirit, inspired with hope, 
and comforted with the knowledge of God's 
sympathy and presence. 

If you had been in Rome, or Athens, or Jeru- 
salem, before the days of Jesus, a strange carpen- 
ter, or blacksmith, or teamster, such a welcome 
as this would have been impossible ; as indeed it 
would be impossible to-day, in any city on earth, 
that has not come largely under the sway of the 
Man of Galilee. And yet this is only one of 
the two hundred and fifty Protestant churches, 
alone, that stand like beacon lights along the 
coast of the city's life. In addition to these, 
there are thirty-four Catholic cliurches, which 
set a good example for us Protestants in one 
thing at least, that they are open every day in 
the week. 

But what else has Christianity to say to tlie 
young man that has just come to Boston ? On 
the corner of Boy Is ton and Berkeley Streets 
stands the hall of the Young Men's Christian 
Association. A mansion it is, standing among 
the princely mansions of the Back Bay, but 
differing from them in this, that the humblest 
young man Avho breaks rock on the Boston 
streets for his daily bread, is made as welcome 
to the fellowship of that beautiful young men's 



36 



THE people's CHRIST 



home, as tlie son of wealth and luxury. Here 
are books and papers. Here are innocent games 
under healthful surroundmgs. Here is a splen- 
did gymnasium for physical exercise under 
skilled teachers. Above all, here are cleanly 
yet genial associations. You are lonesome, you 
are heart-hungry for friendship. The worst 
sickness in the world is homesickness, and the 
loneliest spot on earth is a city crowded full of 
people none of whom take the slightest interest 
in you. But here, in this Young Men's Chris- 
tian Association, you may meet young men of 
your own age, of jouv own trade, under the 
most pleasant conditions, and yet without temp- 
tation to evil. Here, too, are schools for instruc- 
tion. You had to leave school, it may be, 
before the education you had marked out for 
yourself was complete, in order to relieve the 
pressure on the dear shoulders of an overworked 
father or mother. Here in the evening, after a 
day's work is over, you may carry on a course 
of intellectual development that will go far to 
make up to you the loss of the college course 
that once filled your boyhood's dreams. Here 
you may hear instructive lectures and soul- 
inspiring concerts. 

Up on Boylston Street stands the Young 
Men's Christian Union building, another mag- 
nificent palace with luxurious appointments 



CHRIST AND THE WOKKING-MAlSr 37 

that no palace on earth possessed before Jesus 
began to lift men's burdens, and broaden the 
horizon of their thinking. All that I have said 
of the first of these splendid Christian homes for 
young men, is true of the second. Something 
of the magnitude of this work for young men 
accomplished by these central homes may be 
gathered from the fact that, from October to 
March of last year, over seven hundred young 
men visited Association Hall every day. One 
thousand young men were members of the gym- 
nasium, and over nine hundred registered for 
the evening classes. 

Both of these young men's homes have em- 
ployment bureaus connected with them in order 
to increase the opportunity of helping that 
most lonesome of all young men — the one who 
is out of work in a strange city. Nearly nine 
hundred were thus helped to positions last year. 
In the lecture courses, such men as Phillips 
Brooks, Edward Everett Hale, Robert CoUyer, 
William Lloyd Garrison, Reuen Thomas, Pro- 
fessor Atkinson, Joseph Cook, and others 
scarcely less famous, have appeared, while the 
best singers and concert companies of the land 
have furnished entertainment. In fact, Chris- 
tianity, by the founding and support of these 
centres for the young men of Boston, — forums 
for the development of physical, social, intel- 



38 



THE people's CHRIST 



lectual, and moral manliood, and the branches of 
these institutions in various parts of the city, — • 
makes it easier and cheaper in dollars and cents, 
and in outlay of energy, for a young working- 
man of Boston to become a cultivated, intelli- 
gent Christian gentleman, than it is to haunt 
the dime museums, or play pool and be a fool. 
And this is not all. 

Perhaps the exigencies of life in youth have 
been such that you have not been able to 
acquire any accurate knowledge of the trade 
you desire to follow. Christian thoughtfulness 
does not fail you here. On Washington Street, 
in the heart of the city, stands the Wells Memo- 
rial Institute for working-men, born of intelli- 
gent Christian philanthropy. Here you may 
attend free lectures on carpentry, lectures for 
practical electricians ; and, if you will permit 
me to make a suggestion, I will say that the 
most promising field for successful adventure 
which lies before the brainy young working-man 
to-day, is the domain of electricity. In this 
working-men's institute you may find free in- 
struction on steam and engineering. Here, 
again, as in the Young Men's Association, you 
will find concerts and lectures for general in- 
struction and education. A working-men's club, 
a working-men's bank, and a system to secure 
co-operative discount in purchase of fuel and 



CHRIST AND THE WOEKING-MAN 39 



flour, are further characteristics of the Wells 
Memorial Institute. The institution recently 
devised by Mr. Paine, in Roxbury, promises to 
pursue these general lines into still wider fields. 

But the time goes on. I turn now to a man 
who came here to work fifteen years ago. You 
have fought your way as best you could. You 
have joined hands with some honest working- 
woman, and established yourself, if not in a 
house of your own, at least in your own hired 
house. Little children are growing up around 
you ; they need instruction. You are busy all 
day long, and the wife's hands are full to over- 
flowing with household cares. Who shall teach 
them to read and write? Who shall open to 
them the great stores of human knowledge, and 
make all the streams of human wisdom tribu- 
tary to their successful voyage? What has 
Boston's Christian civilization to say to you 
now? Right royally does our fair city stand 
this test. Palatial school buildings are waiting 
in answer, — school buildings such as childi^en 
never saw before in the history of the race. 
These magnificent educational temples stand 
with wide-open doors, welcoming the working- 
men's boys and girls. Not only so, but, mira- 
cle of thoughtf ulness ! an array of skilled 
teachers stand with free text-books in their 
hands, ready not only to welcome your children 



40 



THE people's CHRIST 



at the threshold of knowledge, but to put, as it 
were, a premium on its pursuit. 

As they grow older, and new books of refer- 
ence are needed, or in the long winter evenings 
you desire to forget your toil and keep your 
mind fresh and strong, in touch with the affairs 
of the ever-new world, behold, the great Public 
Library, with its branches stretching out on 
every hand, is offering the use of its wealth of 
priceless books, without money and without 
price. 

Have you lost your situation, and seek em- 
ployment? The Appleton Industrial Home, 
with great-hearted Dr. A. J. Gordon at its 
head, helped more than twelve thousand working 
people last year to employment, while nearly 
every church is to some extent an emploj^ment 
bureau, and nearly every Christian pastor is 
many times a year glad to serve as an employ- 
ment agent. 

But perhaps misfortune comes, the family are 
sick for weary weeks, possibly for months ; it is 
impossible to make the ends meet in the daily 
rounds of household economy. What does 
Christian Boston do to meet this emergency? 
The churches lead first with a larger or smaller 
fund, from every one of their two hundred and 
eighty-four centres in the city. Lodges and 
mutual benefit associations, — all of which owe 



CHRIST AND THE WOEKING-MAN 41 

the germ of whatever usefulness they have de- 
veloped to the spirit of Christianity which com- 
mands that every man look not on his own 
things alone, but also on the things of others, — 
follow their example. To give comfort and 
sympathy, as well as assistance, in this hour of 
misfortune, the Associated Charities, with its 
centre in Chardon Street, and its branch confer- 
ence in every section of the city, finds its mis- 
sion. The Associated Charities undertakes to 
break the isolation and loneliness of these days 
of hardship by the personal visitation of men 
and women of kindly heart (for no others will 
forsake their selfish ways to take up this work 
of Christly self-denial), who seek by counsel 
and encouragement, and by securing temporary 
relief when it is needed, to save the overworked 
and disappointed toiler from despair, and brace 
up the courage for a new struggle against life's 
difficulties. Working in connection with the 
Associated Charities, and granting such relief as 
it finds to be necessary, is the Provident Asso- 
ciation, which last year gave temporary relief, 
after personal visitation, to over two thousand 
working-men's families, comprising nearly eight 
thousand individuals. In addition to this, good 
men and women for more than a hundred years, 
moved upon by the spirit of Christian kindness, 
have been setting a2Dart for the relief of the 



42 



THE people's CHRIST 



poor and unfortunate, certain funds whicli are 
held in trust by the overseers of the poor. These 
funds amount to-day to over six hundred and 
seventy-five thousand dollars in the general 
fund, besides which there is the Firemen's 
Relief Fund of one huncbed and eight thousand 
dollars, and the Police Charitable Fund of two 
hundred thousand dollars more. 

Indeed, there stands to-day invested, for the 
benefit of the working people of Boston, in 
these public funds alone, a grand total, — one 
million, seven hundred and sixty-six thousand, 
four hundred and seventy dollars, and ninety- 
nine cents. Time would fail me to tell of the 
Howard Benevolent Society, wliich in its gen- 
erous history has distributed over three hundi^ed 
thousand dollars ; of the Roxbury Charitable 
Society ; of the Relief Corps work of the Grand 
Army of the Republic, and many other less 
noted, but in the sight of Jesus none the less 
worthy efforts to relieve the working-man in the 
hour of misfortune and trouble. Even in a 
cliildless old age he may find a safe haven in the 
Old Couples' Home at Egleston Square, or the 
Home for Aged Men on Sj^ringfield Street. 

I am deeply conscious that the Christian peo- 
ple of Boston are doing by no means all that 
they might or ought to do, to sliow their sym- 
j^athetic feeling for working-men, but let us 



CHRIST AND THE WORKING-MAN 43 

thank God that so mucli is being done, and 
take courage for the future. 

But in all that I have said, I have not men- 
tioned Christ's greatest benediction on the 
working-man. When Jesus walked among men, 
to heal the sick, to open the eyes of the blind, 
and give health to the leper, was not his great 
mission. These were only incidental to his 
chief mission, which was to open the eye of the 
soul, to cleanse the evil heart, and to comfort 
and give peace to the wounded, broken spirit. 
I have no figures to show, and no figures can 
show, what Christ is doing to-day, in Boston, 
for the working-man who yields to him his 
whole heart and love. To such a man Jesus is 
more than all else. He is his daily companion. 
The shop becomes glorified because Christ is 
there. The home becomes sacred as a training- 
school for heaven, because Jesus dwells there a 
beloved Guest. And in dark hours, when sick- 
ness creeps upon the household, and the shadow 
of death falls on the little lambs of the home 
flock, Jesus stands by the working-man's side, 
and lays the strong, kindly hand of the broth- 
erly carpenter on his shoulder, and says, " Suf- 
fer little children to come unto me, ... for of 
such is the kingdom of heaven." And when 
his own arm trembles, and his eye grows dim, 
and the loneliness of his coming departure steals 



44 



THE people's CHRIST 



over him, the same sweet voice that has cheered 
him in the shop, and soothed him in the home, 
whispers again, " In my Father's house are 
many mansions ; I go to prepare a place for 
you ; I will come again, and receive you unto 
myself, that where I am, there ye may be also." 



CHRIST AND THE WOEKING-WOMAN 45 



CHEIST AND THE WOEKING-WOMAN 



" Jesus, therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat 
thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour. There 
Cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water." — John iv. 6, 7. 

"And upon this came his disciples, and they marvelled 
that he was speaking with a woman." — John iv. 27. 

rr^HIS is the way cities were watered in those 



days. The cities and towns were built on 
the hilltops, for the purposes of defence ; and 
up these rocky hillsides all the water was car- 
ried by women, in water-skins or stone jars. It 
is a far cry from the well of Sychar, and its daily 
train of women laden with water-skins, to the 
Chestnut Hill reservoir, and the faucet in every 
attic, but no farther than the uplift Christ has 
given to womanhood. 

There is nothing more striking in the con- 
trasts of civilization than the superiority of the 
position of woman under the reign of Christian- 
ity, compared with any other system the world 
has ever known. The recognition of woman's 
equality in the struggle of life, however, seems 
to be a flower which demands a high state of 



III 




46 



THE people's CHRIST 



cultivation in the intellectual and moral soil of 
humanity. 

Down in the south-western territories there 
is a huge species of centmy-plant called the 
Maguey. It is covered with great thick leaves, 
a foot wide, two inches thick, and sometimes 
ten feet in length. This plant, which in large 
sections of the country is almost the sole native 
agricultural product, is long-lived and ugly, and 
armed with the sharpest thorns. Out of its juice 
the Mexicans make a most stupefying liquor, 
called " pulque." Revolting enough seems 
this great forest of ill-starred plants, until sud- 
denly, within a few weeks, from the midst of 
these homely leaves, there will shoot up a shaft 
twenty feet in height, which will crown itself 
with a wreath of beautiful flowers. This possi- 
bility of beauty was in the plant through all the 
years of its ugliness. It only waited the proper 
conditions to bring it forth. So there has been 
in Christianity, from the beginning, this pledge 
of woman's right to an equal place with man in 
the world's workshop. Through all the dreary 
bondage of the dark ages, unsuspected for the 
most part, it was lying there in the words of 
Jesus as well as in the whole spirit and philos- 
ophy of the New Testament. 

It is only in the present century, however, 
that Christ's recognition of womanhood has 



CHRIST AND THE WOEKING-WOMAN 47 

come to have general influence and power, even 
in nominally Christian lands. There are people 
now living who can remember when in Boston 
there were less than a score of branches of occu- 
pation open to women, and when there was not 
a college in America, or in the world, which 
gave women an equal chance for education with 
men. This advance has been largely hastened 
by the self-sacrificing devotion of a few earnest 
souls who refused to read into the Bible the sex 
aristocracy which the selfishness and prejudices 
of mankind had imputed to it. Notable among 
these is Lucy Stone, of the Woman's Journal. 
I always thank God, in remembrance of her, in 
recognition of the wider sphere which she has 
largely helped to open to my own sisters, and 
to the whole army of working-women through- 
out the land. Some day, when her work is 
done, the women of America will build her a 
monument on Boston Common ; but her noblest 
monument will be the wider opportunity for 
usefulness given to hundreds of thousands of 
hopeful young lives. 

So marvellous has been the advance of the 
recognition of woman's right to do whatever 
she can do well, that in 1885 there were in Mas- 
sachusetts 4,467 branches of occupation in which 
women were engaged or employed. There is, 
however, one point of gross injustice to which 



48 



THE people's CHUIST 



women are subjected, to which repeated atten- 
tion must be called, until justice is done. It is 
still largely true that women are paid, not 
according to tlieir work, but according to their 
sex. In Boston, the school committee set the 
example in the treatment of teachers, and the 
large dry-goods houses follow in their wake. 
There is, and can be, no valid excuse for this. 
And every good man and woman ought to utter 
their protest against this vestige of unreasoning 
prejudice. 

Now, turning from the general treatment of 
the subject, let us see in what way Christianity 
is practically making it easier for working-women 
to be true, and noble, and happy. 

First, on Berkeley and Appleton Streets, 
there is the Young Women's Christian Associa- 
tion, the first mission of which is to supply the 
lack of a home, and to give pure and congenial 
associations to working-women, especially among 
the younger class, who find themselves alone or 
strangers in the city. This society employs a 
missionary, who frequently meets young girls at 
the railroad stations and steamboat landings, and 
gives them the directions which young women 
often find very helpful on arrival in a strange 
city. This travellers' aid matron says, "I am 
often fully repaid for any effort when a young 
woman says, ' I don't know what I should have 
done without you.' " 



CHRIST AND THE WORKING-WOMAN 49 

During the past year, 1,224 girls, in this hour 
of loneliness and confusion, have had their 
hearts gladdened by the presence of a Christian 
woman, wearing the badge of the Young Wom- 
en's Christian Association, who, in the name of 
Jesus, was seeking for them, and glad to render 
them the very help they needed. In the 1,224 
thus assisted, many being without friends were 
brought to the Association, and work found for 
them. Many others were accompanied to their 
friends in distant parts of the city, or suburban 
towns ; others were taken to railroad stations 
and put on their respective trains, the precau- 
tion being often taken of speaking to the con- 
ductor in their behalf, or telegraphing to their 
friends. It would seem strange that any young 
woman, thus helped, could ever again hear the 
name of Christ without a quicker heart-beat of 
gratitude. More than three hundred young 
women are in the boarding homes of the society ; 
five hundred more find innocent and healthful 
recreation in a gymnasium prepared for their 
use. The Association has established schools 
for the purpose of preparing young women for 
wider spheres of usefulness in home and busi- 
ness circles, training them to become skilled 
workers in whatever direction they may be 
inclined. There is a school of cookery, a train- 
ing school for servants, a school for stenography 



50 



THE people's CHRIST 



and typewriting, together with additional classes 
for commercial and industrial and domestic edu- 
cation, such as dressmaking, etc. 

For women who are out of employment, the 
kindly hand of this Young Women's Christian 
Association has been a great boon. That you 
may know something of the magnitude of the 
help thus rendered, let me give you the number 
and classes of working-women who were assisted 
to employment last year: 191 nurses, 143 
attendants, 53 companions to invalids, 15 super- 
intending housekeepers, 114 working house- 
keepers, 306 seamstresses, 17 matrons, 17 infant 
nurses, 37 nursery seamstresses, 26 bookkeepers, 
40 governesses, 2,099 domestics, 103 miscella- 
neous, — making a total of 3,161 working- 
women who thus found a friend in need. 

Again, on Boylston Street, facing the Public 
Garden, stands the Woman's Educational and 
Industrial Union. Here any working-woman, 
day or evening, may be sure of finding sympa- 
thy and friendship and protection against injus- 
tice. In addition to giving women a chance to 
sell the products of their labor, there is one 
feature of the work of this Union which is espe- 
cially unique and praiseworthy. This is its pro- 
tective department, the object of which is to 
obtain for working-women wages which have 
been wrongfully withheld. A number of lead- 



CHRIST AND THE WORKING-WOMAN 51 

ing lawyers nobly give their services free of 
charge to this department, and thus make it 
possible for the complaints of working-women 
who are too poor to employ legal services, to 
be thoroughly investigated, and if worthy to be 
prosecuted to a just issue. The very existence 
of this society acts as a pressure upon mean 
employers, and is a wall of defence to the poor 
working-woman. The Woman's Educational 
and Industrial Union also provides lectures, 
classes, and entertainments. 

It has "Mothers' Meetings," and "Talks 
with Young Girls " from women of broad expe- 
rience and high reputation. Its endeavor is to 
make the Union a centre of local information, 
and to afford opportunities for interchange of 
thought on questions of vital importance to 
women. It investigates fraudulent advertise- 
ments, and publicly warns women against them. 
It also procures situations for the unemployed, 
whenever possible. Many hundreds of working- 
women, unable, because of household cares, to 
work outside of their own homes, find sale for 
home-cooked food, and useful and fancy articles, 
in the Union's salesrooms. At the lunch-room, 
soups, tea, coffee, and chocolate are offered at 
moderate prices. Working-women carrying 
their own lunches are always welcome. The 
president says, "The Union stands on broad 



52 



THE people's CHRIST 



principles. It is wholly uiisectarian. It believes 
in the religion of human kinship, mutual help- 
fulness, and of obligation to live for the truth, 
with love toward all. Any thought which will 
aid in such living is welcomed, from whatever 
source. Another of our principles is that we 
meet on a basis no narrower than humanity. 
Not that all are equals ; there is no such thing 
as general equality ; but in every human being 
there is something akin to something in every 
other one. The deep things of the heart, the 
realities of existence, are common to all. The 
Union invites all, that each may receive help 
according to her needs." 

Another outgrowth of Christian sentiment 
and sympathy is the Boston Association of 
Working-Girls' Clubs. There are now twelve 
of these clubs in the different parts of the city 
and immediate vicinity. Perhaps this little pict- 
ure, from the Amaranth Club of Roxbury, may 
give you some idea of what they are like. This 
club-room is in the immediate vicinity of Prang's, 
Fiedler's, and other factories in Roxbury, so 
that the membership is largely made up from 
working-girls from these factories. In May 
last, the club had a membership of eighty. The 
rooms are open every evening except Sunday. 
Classes were formed in cooking, dressmaking, 
millinery, embroidery, and singing. 



CHRIST AND THE WOEKING-WOMAN 53 



An enthusiastic committee of Roxbury ladies 
furnished the rooms, and arranged the multifa- 
rious details of these many branches of instruc- 
tion, while younger ladies helped the social 
element, wiping out by their own graciousness 
and cordiality any class distinctions among the 
members of the club. They form with the girls 
a hospitality committee, who take turns in intro- 
ducing new-comers, and in furthering social pleas- 
ures. 

One evening in the week is given to music, 
games, and conversation. They plan together 
for little receptions and re-unions and mothers' 
teas and the like. The parlor is made as attract- 
ive as possible, with piano, bright lights, pict- 
ures, curtains, bookcase, settees, chairs, and all 
necessary appliances. The girls find this a 
pleasant refuge after the long day's din at the 
factory. Entering pale and tired, they go home 
with a happy " Good-night, all," or "I have had 
a splendid time." Large-hearted Christian 
women, who have means to spare, ought to see 
to it that this happy thought bears abundant 
fruit in the multiplication of these working-girls' 
clubs in every section of the city. 

For the past thirteen years there has existed 
in Boston the Massachusetts Society for the 
University Education of Women, which, it seems 
to me, is peculiarly suggestive of the advancing 



54 



THE people's CHEIST 



Christian spirit of our time. Let me give you 
a single example of this society's work. A 
young woman attending the Boston University 
was brought to the attention of the committee 
of this society. An investigation showed that 
she was clearly overworked and underfed. 
The secretary says of her : "One might as well, 
have objected to the dome remaining on the 
State House, as to that girl remaining in college. 
There she was. Cold and hunger and hard work 
made no difference — there she intended to stay. 
She was given financial help, sufficient to free 
her from the necessity of earning money during 
term time, and the committee tried to relieve 
her from as much outside work as possible. In 
spite of care, however, her health began to 
weaken, and it seemed unwise for her to con- 
tinue her college course. The faculty and the 
committee argued and debated the question; 
they urged and exhorted the girl. To all their 
efforts she opposed the most adamantine deter- 
mination. ' What if I am sick ? ' she calmly 
queried. ' Wouldn't it be better to die trying 
to do something, than to live after proving my- 
self incapable of good work ? ' A girl's morbid 
fancy, if you please to call it so, but what can 
be done about it ? It is one of those cases in 
which it is useless to deprecate the ambition 
and the determination. There they are : all that 
can be done is to recognize them. 



CHRIST AND THE WOEKING-WOMAN 55 

" Back to college came this determined young 
woman, with her courage as undaunted and her 
purse as thin as ever, but, we are glad to add, 
with her health much improved by the long 
vacation. Yet hardly can we call those weeks 
a vacation, during which she studied enough to 
make up her deficient examinations, and earned 
money for her winter clothing. She lives in 
a cheap room in the suburbs ; by some light 
labor she earns her board and a little spend- 
ing money ; the University provides her tuition, 
and the loan library of this society furnishes 
her books. The girl is now well and happy, 
proud of her successes, cheerily independent, 
and more determined than ever to have a college 
education." 

One young woman who was aided by the 
society is now helping to lift up her degraded 
sisters in India; another is helping to bring 
a better civilization to the little olive-colored 
women of China ; one is making excellent prog- 
ress in a medical school ; one occupies a pro- 
fessor's chair in a college ; many are teaching 
in prominent schools and academies ; while 
a large number are extending their influence 
through the channels of home, and are giving 
to their little children the results of the cult- 
ured womanhood they acquired by aid of this 
Christian thoughtfulness. 



56 



THE people's CHRIST 



For women in poverty and misfortune, the 
Associated Charities, the Provident Association, 
the Howard Benevolent Society, and the funds 
under the care of the overseers of the poor, to 
which special reference was made in the first 
discourse of this series, have the same kindly 
relation to working-women. Besides these, 
there is the Home for Aged Women at 108 
Revere Street, the Roxbury Home for Children 
and Aged Women on Burton Avenue, the Win- 
chester Home Corporation at No. 10 Eden 
Street, and the Home for Aged Colored Women 
at No. 27 Myrtle Street. Each of these homes 
ministers most gently to aged working-women, 
who in their old age, when no longer able to 
work, find themselves without the friendly aid 
of children or other relatives. 

Sisters, this is only a suggestion of what 
Christ has done and is doing for womanhood. 
When the disciples came back from the city of 
Sychar to the well, where they had left their 
Master, they marvelled to find Him talking with 
a woman. In that day woman was low and 
vulgar. That a brilliant man, upon whose 
words the multitudes hung with breathless in- 
terest, should waste his time in intimate conver- 
sation with a working-woman, talking to her 
indeed as if she were his equal, caused great 
astonishment. But Jesus had no prejudices, no 



CHRIST AND THE WORKING-WOMAN 57 

spirit of aristocracy; he recognized no social 
caste, except the divine one of brotherhood. I 
thank God that in our age, which has its black 
side, to be sure, there are yet many indications 
of the working of the leaven of Christian spirit 
in the common life of the people. Mr. Stopford 
Brooke has recently given a fascinating descrip- 
tion of Tintoret's " Last Supper." It is a com- 
mon room in which the apostles and the Master 
meet. Servants hurry to and fro ; the evening 
has fallen dark, and the lamps are lit; those 
who eat the meal are really fishermen and un- 
learned men ; here and there are incidents which 
prove that the artist wished to make us feel 
that it was just such a meal as was eaten that 
night by every one else in J erusalem. We are 
indeed in the midst of common human life. 
But the upper air of the chamber is filled with 
a drift of cherubim ; and the haze of the lamp- 
light falls on and envelops the upright figure of 
the Christ, worn and beautiful, and bending 
down to offer to one of the disciples the broken 
bread. It is common human life, filled with 
the Divine. 

I covet for you, young women, this pure 
and lofty fellowship, Avhich shall glorify your 
common life, and take out of it all that is 
monotonous or prosaic. I pray for you, that 
you may rise to this holy ambition, — to be 



58 



THE people's CHEIST 



sisters of Jesus, in sympatlietic service. Some 
of you remember, perhaps, the old legend, 
which relates how three ladies of high degree 
were once mentally exercised as to the rela- 
tive fairness of their hands. The first had 
just passed her snowy fingers through the 
running stream, and pearl-like drops hung glit- 
tering from them. The second looked com- 
placently at the rose tint derived from the 
strawberries she had culled. The third held 
fragrant flowers, and her hands were sweet with 
their breath. Up to this group came a needy 
woman, ragged and old, beseeching alms. Much 
disgusted at her appearance, they motioned her 
away ; and she turned from them to a hard- 
working woman, whose toil-worn hands told of 
daily bread earned with difiiculty. Then, as 
now, the poor were ready to help each other, 
even at the cost of self-denial. The working- 
woman gave what she could from her scanty 
store ; and the legendary beggar, transformed 
to an angel, was heard to say, " The most beau- 
tiful hands of all are those stretched out to 
consider and aid the poor." 

The hands that bless the world most are the 
hands of sympathy which become the gentle 
messengers of a heart which, loving God with 
all its strength, loves its neighbor as itself. 

Do not hesitate to follow any blessed impulse 



CHEIST AND THE WOEKING-WOMAN 59 

toward helpfulness, because your capacity seems 
small or your opportunities trivial. A few years 
ago an invalid woman, whose home was in the 
country, visited a large city near which she lived, 
on a hot summer day. She had business in some 
of the smaller streets and alleys, and was ap- 
palled at the number of pale, puny, and sick 
babies in their mothers' arms, who were literally 
dying for a breath of fresh air. What could 
she do? "I cannot save all," she said, "but I 
may save one. There is room for a mother and 
her child at home." She took the one mother 
and her child out to her farmhouse, kept them 
for a fortnight, and then took them home and 
brought others. Some of her neighbors followed 
her example. The next summer the number of 
children entertained amounted to hundreds ; the 
next, thousands. 

Another woman, who lived in the city, and 
had neither money nor farmhouse, was sadly 
grieved that she could not help this most gra- 
cious charity. "I can at least tell others of it," 
she said. She wrote an account of it for a New 
York newspaper. A third woman, possessed of 
great wealth, on reading her article, sent a thou- 
sand dollars to the editor, with the request that 
he should open a fund for this noble purpose. 
The Fresh Air Charity was the result. The 
various organizations throughout the United 



60 



THE people's CHRIST 



States for the removal of poor children from the 
poisonous air of the cities to the country, have 
grown out of this first attempt of a single half- 
sick farmer's wife to save one dying baby. If 
the woman who thought of it on that sultry day, 
as she passed sick and weary through the slums, 
had decided, " I cannot save all, why should I 
trouble myself with one?" how many lives that 
have been saved would have been lost ! 

There is nothing so contagious as a good 
action. Do promptly the generous deed toward 
which you are impelled, and God is able to 
multiply it and cause it to bring forth fruit an 
hundred-fold. 



CHEIST AND THE SICK 



61 



IV 



CHEIST AND THE SICK 



" I was sick, and ye visited me." — Matt. xxv. 36. 
And whithersoever he entered, into villages, or cities, or 
country, they laid the sick in the streets, and besought 
him that they might touch if it were but the border of his 
garment; and as many as touched him were made whole." 
— Mark vi. 56. 



RGANIZED care of the sick is, beyond 



question, the gift of Jesus Christ to man- 
kind. Frederick W. Robertson puts it well 
when he says that, while Christianity did not 
create the feelings of tenderness and compas- 
sion, it did centralize them. To use his own 
words : " What Christianity did for all these 
feelings was exactly what the creation of the 
sun did for the light then existing. There was 
light before, but the creation of the sun was the 
gathering of all the scattered rays of light into 
one focus. Christian institutions, asylums, hos- 
pitals, are the reduction into form of the feelings 
that existed before." 

Yet Christianity not only centralizes, but 
wonderfully develops as well, the capacity for 
sympathy and tenderness in the human heart. 
The same writer I have quoted, in another 




62 



THE people's CHEIST 



place compares the influence of Christianity to 
a mighty tropical river, which might pour its 
warm, fertilizing flood across the northern hem- 
isphere, the result of which would be "the 
impartation of a vigorous and gigantic growth 
to the vegetation already in existence, and at 
the same time the development of life in seeds 
and germs, which had long lain latent in the 
soil, incapable of vegetation in the unkindly 
climate of their birth. Exactly in the same 
way, the flood of a divine life poured suddenly 
into the souls of men enlarged and ennobled 
qualities which had been used already, and, at 
the same time, developed powers which never 
could have become apparent in the cold, low 
temperature of natural life." 

Lecky, the great historian of European mor- 
als, is responsible for the statement that the 
countless institutions of mercy which have cov- 
ered the globe under Christianity were abso- 
lutely unknown to the pagan world. The 
ancient world was given over to selfishness. 

Tacitus describes Rome of about the time of 
Jesus as a place of cruel rage, where the surest 
destruction came as "the consequence of vir- 
tues." Matthew Arnold sings of that time : — 

" On that hard pagan world disgust 
And secret loathing fell ; 
Deep weariness and sated lust 
Made human life a hell. 



CHRIST AND THE SICK 



63 



In his cool hall, with haggard eyes, 

The Roman noble lay; 
He drove abroad in furious guise, 

Along the Appian Way. 

He made a feast, drank fierce and fast. 
And crowned his hair with flowers — 

No easier nor no quicker pass'd 
The impracticable hours." 

But in the midst of all this luxury there was 
not a single hospital for the sick. And in a 
later day, when the early Christians were en- 
deavoring to follow the example of Jesus, and 
the Archdeacon Laurentius was called upon by 
the prefect of the city for the treasures of the 
early Roman Church, on his presenting under 
the colonnades the poor, the crippled, and the 
sick, whom he had sheltered and nourished, he 
was roasted alive as a punishment for his sup- 
posed sarcasm. 

We have left to us a valuable store of Grecian 
literature, but in all its treasures there is no 
rich vein out of which grew, or might ever 
grow, an asylum for the sick and infirm. But 
Jesus, both by precept and example, turned the 
thought of mankind toward caring for the sick. 
The influence of Christianity could not be other- 
wise when we consider with how much dignity 
it crowns the individual human life. As one 
has said : " A crowded city, looked at merely 



64 



THE people's CHRIST 



as a mass of living beings, is no more dignified, 
and far more disgusting, than an ant-hill with 
its innumerable creeping lives. Looked on as 
a place in wliich each individual is a temple of 
the Holy Ghost, and every pang and joy of 
whom has in it something of infinitude, it be- 
comes almost priceless in its value." 

Once convince the world that human life is 
valuable, not because it is the life of a king or 
the life of some aristocrat, but because is the 
life of a man, the child of the infinite God, and 
you will naturally turn the inventive genius of 
the race toward caring for and protecting this 
precious treasure. Tliis is exactly what Chris- 
tianity did for mankind. It made the mind 
alert to discover and understand the beneficent 
secrets of nature. I suppose very few of us 
appreciate the priceless boon which God has 
granted to this generation in the diminution of 
pain. Over in the Public Garden there stands 
a statue in memory of one before whose wonder- 
ful discovery of anodynes all operative surgery 
was agonizing, after which it was painless. 
A great surgeon says : " Past all counting is 
the sum of happiness enjoyed b}^ the millions 
who have in the last thirty-three 3'ears escaped 
the pain that was inevitable in surgical opera- 
tions ; pain made more terrible by apprehension, 
more keen by close attention ; sometimes awful 



CHEIST AND THE SICK 



65 



in a swift agony, sometimes prolonged beyond 
even the most patient endurance, and then re- 
newed in memory, and terrible in dreams. This 
will never be felt again. And besides this abo- 
lition of pain, it would take long to tell how 
chloroform and ether have enlarged the field of 
useful surgery, making many things easy which 
were difficult, many safe which were perilous, 
many practicable which were nearly impossible." 

Not only has Christianity made men alert to 
discover means of protecting and prolonging 
human life, but it has given men a new sense of 
responsibility, of our power to help each other. 
In a recent life of Dorothea Dix — which, by the 
way, I advise every young woman to secure and 
read as soon as possible — the story is told how, 
in her work for the insane, she became greatly 
impressed with the need of a new hospital for 
that purpose in the city of Providence. She 
told some of her friends that she intended to 
ask a very rich man, who had the reputation of 
being exceedingly miserly and utterly destitute 
of public spirit, to furnish the means. 

Her friends assured her that her mission 
would certainly be futile ; but she persevered in 
her determination, and called on this man in his 
home. He received her very coolly, and almost 
disdainfully asked her what she wanted. Her 
blood on fire, Dorothea Dix stood on her feet 



66 



THE people's CHRIST 



before him and stated her case. She told the 
astonished miser, as though it were a matter of 
the greatest possible personal interest and im- 
portance to him, of the sufferings and sorrows 
of these unfortunates. With flashing eyes she 
assured him that these wretched beings were his 
brothers and sisters, and that he could not 
escape the responsibility of his wealth and its 
power to help them. To this sordid soul, ab- 
sorbed in money-getting, the terribly earnest 
appeal of this timid, but almost inspired, woman, 
was like a revelation from heaven. Its effect 
was very much like that when Jesus stood before 
Zaccheus, who, after a conversation with the 
Christ, said, " Lord, behold, half of my goods I 
give to the poor." The Providence miser 
looked up tremblingly into the face of Dorothea 
Dix, and said, humbly enough, " What do you 
want me to do? " "I want you," she said, "to 
give me fifty thousand dollars, to build addi- 
tional quarters for these poor insane people." 
"I will do it," he said; and the victory was 
won. By no lever on earth could she have pro- 
duced this result, except that which Christianity 
put in her hands. 

In turning now to what the influence of 
Christianity is doing, in a public way, to heal 
the sick and care for the suffering in the city of 
Boston, I am embarrassed by a wealth of riches. 



CHRIST AND THE SICK 



67 



I can only glance at some of the great institu- 
tions that are an honor and a glory to our city. 

First, there is our great City Hospital, with 
its spacious buildings that remind you of some 
European palace ; with its splendid dome, which 
attracts the eye from every part of the city, 
second only in interest to the gilded dome on 
Beacon Hill, — one, the emblem of justice ; the 
other, the emblem of mercy. Here is a notable 
staff of more than fifty physicians and surgeons, 
comprehending specialists in every department 
of medicine and surgery, with a large corps of 
trained nurses, skilled in the arts of kindness 
and sympathetic care. 

And the marvel of it all is, that this palace, 
with its great array of learned and skilled phy- 
sicians and trained attendants, is waiting, not to 
be of service to the rich and noble, to the aris- 
tocracy of the city, but specially to the poor and 
the unfortunate. Here is a wretched old tramp, 
hobbling along through some slum street in the 
North End. He is ragged and dirty. Surely 
nobody takes any care or interest in him, you 
say ; but just now a careless driver in an ex- 
press-wagon comes tearing around the corner, 
and, rushing into the narrow street, before the 
old man can get out of the way, he is thrown to 
the ground, and his arm is broken. What hap- 
pens ? A crowd of little boys and girls gather ; 



68 



THE people's CHEIST 



a few other wayfarers run to his assistance ; a 
quick-witted boy, whose legs are as quick as 
his wit, hails the policeman on the next block ; 
the policeman turns a key in the alarm-box on 
the corner; and in five minutes that poor old 
tramp, whom nobody seemed to care for before 
he was hurt, is being gently placed on a stretcher, 
lifted into the ambulance, and driven away to 
the City Hospital, where all the resources of 
the splendid institution are at his disposal. It 
is not so good a world as it ought to be, my 
brother, but do not forget that this is the only 
age in which the sun ever looked down on a 
scene of practical sympathy like that. There 
were treated last year in this hospital 6,502 
patients, of whom 5,318 were healed. Besides 
these, there were treated outside of the hospital, 
in their own homes, but at the hospital's expense 
and care, 13,605 patients. After deducting all 
that was paid in return by people who were 
able to pay for their own treatment, the city 
expended, in this one superb charity alone, 
$168,611.11. 

It would be like telling the same story over 
again, to recount the work of the Massachusetts 
General Hospital. Not far away from the City 
Hospital stands the Massachusetts Homoeopathic 
Hospital, which, though in existence but a few 
years, is doing an excellent and philanthropic 
work. 



CHRIST AND THE SICK 



69 



In South Boston our most attractive public 
building is the Carney Hospital, which cannot 
justly be overlooked in a summary of this 
kind. During the past three years it has 
received 3,124 patients, of which 2,674 were 
healed. Of these patients, 581 only paid in 
full, 609 paid in part, and 1,934 were both 
admitted and treated gratuitously. Besides 
these, 14,228 were treated as "out-patients." 
While this is a Roman Catholic institution, 
it is entirely non-sectarian in its treatment of 
patients and charitable service rendered. Quite 
a number of the members of this congregation 
were treated as " out-patients " during the last 
year; and at least one member of this church 
was admitted to the hospital, and for several 
weeks received as kindly and generous treat- 
ment as he could possibly have secured in an 
institution of our own. 

At the corner of Ash and Bennett Streets is 
the headquarters of the Boston Dispensary, one 
of the most beneficent charities in the city, which 
has been growing in magnitude for ninety-four 
years. The Boston Dispensary signally illustrates 
the attitude of Christian civilization toward the 
sick. The wood-carving of the " Good Samari- 
tan," which hangs in the lower hall, and the old 
picture of the same famous and blessed indi- 
vidual painted by John Johnson in 1797, also 



70 



THE people's CHRIST 



one of the heirlooms of the Dispensary, aptly 
indicate the spirit in which it was founded. 
The chief object of the Dispensary is to provide 
medical advice and medicines for the sick poor. 
There are in the central building on Bennett 
Street consulting rooms where fifteen physi- 
cians, all of them specialists, give their services 
free. 

And if you will permit me to make the re- 
mark, I think it is only just to say that a wide 
observation leads me to the conclusion that no 
other class of men render so much service to 
the sick and suffering, without any anticipation 
of reward, as physicians. 

Besides these office physicians, the Dispen- 
sary has the city divided into eleven districts. 
Each one of these districts is served by a resi- 
dent physician, who receives a small salary paid 
by the Dispensary, so that his services are free 
to the patient. Three of these districts are in 
South Boston, which, with a single exception, 
receives more help from the Dispensary than any 
other district in the city. 

The magnitude of the help rendered by this 
Dispensary was, I must confess, a great astonish- 
ment to me. During the first quarter of the 
year 1890, 14,541 patients were treated at the 
central office alone. During the second quarter, 
16,209 were treated; and during the third 



CHEIST AND THE SICK 



71 



quarter, ending with September last, 14,610. 
The last quarter of the year is not yet com- 
pleted; but assuming the number of patients 
during that quarter to be equal to the third, 
59,970 persons will have received medical relief 
and advice from the Dispensary during the year 
1890. During the nine months 46,339 prescrip- 
tions have been filled. 

Those who have work, and are able to do so, 
pay an average of ten cents for each prescrip- 
tion ; but all who are unable to pay, receive 
medicine as well as treatment free. Besides 
these, the average number of prescriptions to 
outside patients amount to about 1,000 per 
month. 

On the same street, standing next door to the 
Dispensary, is the South End Diet Kitchen, a 
wisely-conceived and most gracious charity. 
The purpose of this unique society, of which 
Mrs. P. C. Brooks is president, is to extend help 
to the poor in the discouraging and critical time 
of illness. When we consider how hard sick- 
ness is to bear, even when surrounded by deli- 
cate comforts, with kind friends searching the 
markets to find dainties to tempt our appetite and 
woo back our strength, we must in some feeble 
degree — and yet it is only a feeble degree — 
realize the suffering of those who have not the 
means to procure the nourishing food necessary 



72 



THE people's CHRIST 



to restore health and strength. Tickets are dis- 
tributed by dispensary doctors, city missionaries, 
the Bible-readers, nurses, and Associated Chari- 
ties' agents. These people, above all others, 
are brought into personal contact with the poor, 
and are in the best position to know the needs 
of the recipients. During last year there were 
dispensed to 13,194 families, 13,919 quarts of 
milk, 19,789 eggs, 2,540 pints of beef-tea and 
mutton-broth. How much of added comfort 
and happiness this timely assistance must have 
brought to anxious watchers who were other- 
wise unable to obtain this healthful nourishment 
for their sick ! Another diet kitchen at the 
North End does a still larger work. 

I am not attempting, of course, to give you 
even an outline of all the hospital work of the 
city; time would fail me to recount the good 
work done by the Massachusetts Lunatic Hos- 
pital, the New England Hospital for Women 
and Children, the Free Hospital for Women, 
the Murdock Hospital, St. Elizabeth's Hospital, 
and many other noble and worthy institutions 
which I have not space even to name. It is my 
province, rather, to give a free-hand sketch here 
and there which will show you something of the 
scope and the spirit of Boston Christianity's 
attitude toward the sick. 

One of the sweetest charities of this kind, 



CHRIST AND THE SICK 



73 



working in relation to all the rest, and breathing 
upon each something of its own fragrance, is the 
Boston Flower and Fruit Mission. Everybody 
knows that flowers are acceptable to the sick ; 
but the eagerness with which they are watched 
for at the hospitals, and up in dark, gloomy 
attics, is hard to realize, unless it comes within 
personal observation. 

" Only a blossom, 
Just the merest bit of bloom, — 
But it brings a glimpse of summer 
To the little, darkened room! " 

This society interests the school-children in 
many towns about, who gather the wild flowers 
in the spring and summer, and send them in 
with a bit of paper on which is printed : " For 
the poor, sick little boys and girls in the hospi- 
tal." Generous people throughout the country, 
who have large gardens, are also solicited for 
contributions, until many hundreds of baskets 
of beautiful flowers pass through their hands. 

The diet kitchens, of which I was speaking 
only a moment ago, were supplied twice a week 
through last spring and summer with bouquets, 
which were dispensed with the milk and soup. 
I have no doubt that in many cases the bouquet 
is of as much value to the patient as the nour- 
ishment. 

One of the ladies connected with the mission 



74 



THE people's CHRIST 



says it may be a mere matter of sj^mpathy and 
sentiment, but it is tlie one thing that brings a 
moment of brightness and joy into a sick-room. 
The iron bedsteads, the clean white beds, the 
polished, stainless floors, the white walls of a 
hospital, look clean, and fresh, and orderly, to a 
visitor. But to the patient who has stared at 
them, and been stared back at by them, for 
weeks and months, they look bloodless, cold, and 
severe. A bunch of fresh, fragrant flowers in a 
room like this brings a joy to the heart of the 
invalid, which none but that invalid can appre- 
ciate. 

Another lady tells how she went one day last 
summer into a large tailoring shop in Boston, 
where some two hundred women and girls were 
at work. As she passed around with her basket 
of flowers, a quiet young girl came up to her 
and asked for " white ones, if you have them." 
Something in the voice startled the lady ; and 
as she looked into the girl's sad face she noticed 
that her eyes filled with tears. " They are all 
lovely," she said, "but I only want a few white 
ones. Our baby died last night, and when I 
saw you come in I thought I would ask you for 
a few white ones for him; it will cheer his 
mother up a bit." God bless the Flower Mission, 
and all the people whose Christly spirit moves 
them to aid in its blessed work ! 



CHRIST AND THE SICK 



75 



But let us not forget that, while Jesus was a 
great Physician of the body, his chief mission 
was to heal the sin-sick soul. And while Chris- 
tianity is- leavening every nation it touches 
with its own spirit of sympathy and tenderness 
toward the sick, its chief mission, like that of 
its divine Founder, is to bring healing to the 
diseased heart. Christ, and Christ alone, can 

"Minister to a mind diseased, 
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, 
Eaze out the written troubles of the brain, 
And with some sweet, oblivious antidote 
Cleanse the stuff' d bosom of that perilous stuff 
Which weighs upon the heart." 



■I 



I 



76 



THE people's CHEIST 



V 



THE CHEISTIAN'S HOEIZON 

"Thou hast set my feet in a large room." — Ps. 
xxxi. 8. 

nv /TEN want room. It is one of the intuitions 



-^-^ of our humanity. All history is full of 
illustrations. The American pioneers who 
pressed their way out from the settlements 
along the Atlantic coast, into the forests of 
Western Massachusetts and New York, were 
seeking after room. The next generation that 
climbed the AUeghanies, peopled the Ohio 
River valley, followed Daniel Boone into Ken- 
tucky, was obedient to the same instinct. The 
young men who a little later listened to Horace 
Greeley, and crossed the Mississippi River, and 
began the work of civilization on the great 
plains, were in the same line of succession. 
Fremont climbing the Rocky Mountains, Kennan 
or Schwatka or Greely clambering over the ice- 
bergs of the Arctics, Stanley crawling through 
the dense forests of the "darkest Africa," all 
tell the same story, and are indications of the 




THE CHEISTIAN'S HORIZON 77 



same restless spirit and unsatisfied demand of 
the soul. In a physical way, Joaquin Miller 
gives voice to this feeling in his song of the 
" Inland Empire : " — 

" Eoom! room to turn round in, to breathe and be free, 
And to grow to be a giant, to sail as at sea, 
With tlie speed of the wind — on a steed with his mane 
To the wind, without patliway, or a route or a rein. 
Eoom ! room to be free, where tlie wliite bordered sea 
Blows a kiss to a brother as boundless as he." 

In a higher sense, the old Puritans were an 
illustration of this same spirit. Their whole 
history is the story of a struggle for room, — 
room to think — room to believe. This drove 
them from England to Holland, and from Hol- 
land to the sea. " They could not live by king- 
made creeds or rules." 

Whittier, in his last poem, gives it as one of 
the chief attractions of the haven of eternal rest, 
that there — 

" Every bark has sailing room." 

It is our purpose this morning to show the 
grand office of our Christianity in satisfying this 
demand of humanity in the highest and noblest 
sense ; to show that it broadens the horizon of 
our lives. 



78 



THE people's CHEIST 



I. 

Christianity enlarges the horizon of the intel- 
lect. It awakens men to the grand possibilities 
of human thought. One of the most brilliant 
thinkers of this country, who has made himself 
an honorable name throughout the civilized 
world by his power of sustained and lofty 
thinking, says of himself, that twenty-five years 
ago he was driving a hack, without any concep- 
tion that he had a head worth using ; but he was 
converted to Christ, and that spiritual regenera- 
tion proved to be a regeneration of mind as well. 
Perhaps no more apt illustration of the power 
of Christianity to enlarge and glorify the mental 
vision can be found, than in the history of art. 
The magnificent paintings that fill the art gal- 
leries of Italy had their birth in a revival of 
religion. Savonarola, Sfc. Francis, and their 
heroic followers among the Italian monks of 
the Middle Ages, were the real founders of 
those splendid schools of art. The historian 
declares of Giotto that " he was no less remark- 
able as a Christian than as a painter." 

The Florentine associations laid great stress 
on personal piety. The fraternities of painters 
held periodical meetings to render praise and 
thanksgiving to God. It was said of Fra An- 
gelico that he never took up a pencil without 



THE christian's hoeizon 79 



first having recourse to prayer, and that when- 
ever he painted a crucifixion the tears streamed 
down his face. The epitaph of this saintly 
artist expresses the spirit of the highest art of 
the fifteenth century : " To me be it no glory 
that I was a second Apelles, but that all my 
gains I laid at thy feet, O Jesu." 

Michael Angelo's great themes, both in sculp- 
ture and painting, show that his genius was 
fired by the same mighty torch. 

There is something in the splendid concep- 
tion of humanity as set forth by Christianity, 
which gives breathing-room for the mind. 

II. 

It enlarges the horizon of the moral judg- 
ment. It gives a clearer, truer atmosphere in 
which to behold the relative values of temporal 
and spiritual things. Over on the Lake Shore 
Railroad in Ohio there lived a rich old German, 
a large grain dealer. One night his elevators 
took fire, and something like a quarter of a 
million dollars went up in flames. The next 
morning the old German, with his friends, stood 
about the smoking pile of black debris, looking 
gloomy enough. 

In the midst of the blackened mass there was 
still a considerable quantity of grain, which, 
though badly damaged, was not entirely de- 



80 



THE people's CHEIST 



stroyed. A party of speculators came, and, 
after investigating a little, offered him fifteen 
thousand dollars for the pile. He had not 
dreamed of getting that much out of it, and 
accepted the offer gladly. As he was making 
out a bill of sale he overheard one of the men 
say to another, " What a grand lot of whiskey 
that will make ! " The old man was on his 
feet in a moment. " What's that ? " said he ; 
"are you going to make whiskey out of that 
grain?" "Yes; why not?" "Well, then you 
don't." And he broke off the transaction 
right there. Some of his friends plead with 
him: "You are not in a position to be over- 
scrupulous ; you have lost a quarter of a million 
dollars, you are not sure yet but you will turn 
out a bankrupt ; and, after all, what does it 
matter to you what they do with your grain? 
You are not responsible for what becomes of it 
after it passes out of your hands." Then the 
grand old German straightened himself up and 
said, " Gentlemen, I know I have lost my eleva- 
tors, and my hundreds of thousands of bushels 
of grain have gone up in smoke ; but if you 
think my principles burned up last night with 
my wheat, then you are mistaken, that's all." 
That old German had clear eyes, and looked 
through a moral atmosphere that made it possi- 
ble for him to Aveiofh thino's at their true value. • 



THE CHEISTIAN'S HOEIZON 81 



There is a time coming when the wisdom of 
his decision will be manifest. Lowell, in his 
song of "America," sings of the Weighing 
Time ; there — 

"Stood the tall archangel, weighing 
All man's dreaming, doing, saying, 
All the failure and the gain, 
All the triumph and the pain, 
In the unimagined years. 
Full of hopes, more full of tears, 
Since old Adam's conscious eyes 
Backward searched for Paradise, 
And, instead, the flame-blade saw 
Of inexorable law. 

In a dream I marked him there, 

With his fire-gold flickering hair, 

In his blinding armor stand. 

And the scales were in his hand; 

Mighty were they, and full well 

They could poise both heaven and hell, 

' Angel,' asked I humbly then, 

* Weighest thou the souls of men ? 

That thine office is, I know.' 

' Nay,' he answered me; ' not so. 

But I weigh the hopes of man 

Since the power of choice began 

In the world of good or ill.' 

Then I waited and was still. 

In one scale I saw him place 
All the glories of our race : 
Cups that lit Belsliazzar's feast. 
Gems the wonder of the East, 



82 



THE people's CHRIST 



Kublai's sceptre, Caesar's sword, 
Many a poet's golden word, 
Many a skill of science, vain 
To make men as gods again. 

In the other scale he threw 

Things regardless, outcast, few, 

Martyr-ash, arena-sand. 

Of St. Francis' cord a strand, 

Beechen cups of men whose need 

Fasted that the poor might feed. 

Disillusions and despairs 

Of young saints with grief-grayed hairs, 

Broken hearts that break for man. 

Marvel through my pulses ran, 
Seeing then the beam divine 
Swiftly on this hand decline, 
While earth's splendor and renown 
Mounted light as thistle-down." 

III. 

Christianity broadens the horizon of our sym- 
pathies. Christ came to make mankind one. 
Humanity was broken asunder : He came to 
bring it together in brotherhood. When the 
proud lawyer asked Jesus, " Who is my neigh- 
bor?" and Jesus told the story of the good 
Samaritan, it greatly shocked the prejudices of 
the people that heard Him. Christianity shows 
us that our neighbor is whoever needs us, and 
whom we can help. 

A man who lives in Georgia, or Mexico, or 
Japan, may be more my neighbor than the man 



THE christian's HORIZON 83 



who lives next door to me. Florence Nightin- 
gale was a neighbor to the English soldiers in 
the Crimean War. William Lloyd Garrison 
was a neighbor to the slaves in Louisiana. When 
Charleston was shaken to pieces by an earth- 
quake, Boston was her neighbor inside of twenty- 
four hours. When Jacksonville and Memphis 
were smitten with yellow fever, the gold-hunters 
of Idaho, the grape-growers of California, and 
the lumber-men of Puget Sound, alike recog- 
nized them as neighbors. That is the spirit of 
Christianity. The horizon lifts at its coming. 
It brings all mankind into one neighborhood. 
May God give us more and more of what some 
poet has described as — 

A sense of an earnest will 

To help the lowly-living, 
And a terrible heart-thrill 

When we have no power of giving. 
An arm of aid to the weak, 

A friendly hand to the friendless, 
Kind words — so short to speak — 

But whose echo is endless. 
The world is wide, these things are small, 
They may be nothing, but they are all." 

A large part of the kingdom of Holland is 
many feet below high-water mark. One may 
stand inside the embankment and hear the 
heart-beat of the ocean far above his head. 
The surplus water on the surface of the country 



84 



THE people's CHRIST 



is pumped up by innumerable large windmills, 
and poured into the sea at low water by means 
of a system of canals. To accomplish this, engi- 
neers in all parts of the country are in constant 
telegraphic communication with a central office, 
from which, as from a brain, orders are sent to 
open the canal-locks here, and close them there, 
so as to keep the waters everywhere at the 
proper level. Without such a perfect system, 
Holland might be inundated at any time ; but 
by this complex machinery, the inhabitants live 
safely below the level of the sea. So it is the 
purpose of our Christianity to make this whole 
world a safe and happy place to live in, by 
bringing men everywhere not only into sympa- 
thy with each other, but into friendly touch and 
communion with the loving heart of God, who, 
back of all combinations, is the great Combiner. 

IV. 

Christianity broadens the horizon of our activi- 
ties. It exalts us by making us workers to- 
gether with God. The humblest work becomes 
glorious if performed with a noble purpose, and 
in royal company. In the lower hall of the 
State House on Beacon Hill, where hang the 
treasures which Massachusetts soldiers brought 
back from many a bloody battle-field of the 
Rebellion, there is one pole from which the 



THE christian's hoeizon 85 



banner has been entirely torn away. That naked 
pole is not without its history. 

It was carried at Fort Wagner, at the liead 
of the colored soldiers from Massachusetts. The 
color-bearer was wounded, his flag was torn by 
shot and shell, but he crawled out through the 
agony of wounded and dying men, clasping his 
naked staff to his bosom, crying over and over 
again, " It did not touch the ground, it did not 
touch the ground ! " He had caught the spirit 
of the heroic struggle in which he was engaged. 
So Christianity lifts us out of the mere struggle 
for bread. We still struggle for bread indeed, 
but the earthly loaf becomes an emblem of the 
bread which came down from heaven. Our 
little daily struggle against temptation and sin 
becomes a part of the great battle which Jesus 
is fighting for the redemption of this world. 
We keep pace with Jesus ; we are carrying his 
banner ; the spirit of his heroism is upon us ; we 
are exalted and ennobled. How this enlarges 
the horizon of our life-work ! Death is no longer 
the wreckage-place, where all life's cargo is 
scattered on the rocks. To the Christian, death 
is only the tide-rip where the river-current meets 
the sea. The poet sings : — 

" Over ten thousand miles of pathless ocean 

The ship moves on its steadfast course each day; 
Through tropic calms, or seas in wild commotion, 
And anchors safe within the expected bay. 



86 



THE people's CHRIST 



O ship of God ! with voyage more sublime — 
O human soul ! In thine appointed hour, 

Launched from eternity on seas of time, 
In calms more fatal, storms of madder power, — 

Sail on ! and trust the compass in thy breast ; 

Trust the diviner heavens that round thee bend, 
And, steering for the port of perfect rest. 

Trust, most of all, in thine Eternal Friend." 



PETEK AND HIS METHODS AT PENTECOST 87 



VI 



PETEE AND HIS METHODS AT 
PENTECOST 1 



" Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their 
hearts, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, 
Men and brethren, what shall we do ? Then Peter said unto 
them, Kepent, and be baptized every one of you, in the name 
of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive 
the gift of the Holy Ghost." —Acts ii. 37, 38. 



lENTECOST is a wonderful picture. How 



many workers for God, worn and weary in 
the battle against the unbelief and sin of their 
time, have gone back to Pentecost for courage, 
and have come away from studying anew its 
sharply drawn characters with new zeal and 
new strength ! 

It is an heroic picture. A little band of per- 
haps a hundred and twenty men and women on 
one side, and all the world on the other ! His- 
tory never tires us by repeating the story of the 
three hundred Lacedaemonians who withstood 
the army of invaders in the mountain-pass of 
old ; but here were less than half as many mar- 
shaled against the world, not simply to defend 

1 Delivered in a series of discourses on " Bible Revivalists." 
Published in The Treasarij, July, 1890. 




88 



THE people's CHRIST 



themselves, but inspii-ed witli tlie hope of uni- 
versal conquest. 

On one side was Jewish bigotry, cynical 
Grecian contempt, and the strong, hard hand of 
Roman hate. Over ao-ainst these stood a little 
band of men and women, without arms, or 
culture, or social position, preaching a crucified 
Redeemer. They undertook this struggle, not 
in an age when freedom of speech was recog- 
nized, but at a time when the paw of a lion or 
the horn of a maddened bull was the ordinarj- 
answer of tyranny to the argument of an 
opponent. 

History holds no more heroic picture. The 
central figure is Peter, bold to rashness, impul- 
sive to a fault, but tender of heart ; and when 
at last entirely subdued by the conquering love 
of Jesus, as true as the magnet to the steel in 
his undying love to the Redeemer. Peter's 
faults bring him close enough to us to make 
him helpful in our infirmities. 

There are some triumphant epochs in his life 
that would discourage us, were it not that there 
is brought out in sharp outline the rough, 
rugged path he had to climb to reach them. 
But when we see him in his impulsive wilful- 
ness refusing to let Jesus wash his feet, and 
then, a moment later, shamed by the Saviour's 
rebuke, exch^iming, "Not my feet onl}*, but my 



PETER AND HIS METHODS AT PENTECOST 89 

hands and head also," we feel that he is one of 
us — our cheeks burn and redden with his shame. 
And how many of us have watched him as with 
strange fright and cowardice he denies the Lord 
in that outer court; and then, shivering, as 
though the mean lie had frozen the blood in his 
veins, he hovers down over the fire trying to 
warm his numb fingers; and then, at the ten- 
der, pained look of the patient Saviour, he goes 
out and weeps bitter tears of anguish. Ah, 
how many of us have gone out with him and 
wept the same tears that seemed to scorch our 
very souls ! 

Happy has it been for us if we have kept him 
company in his repentance, and have entered 
with him upon the new life of confidence and 
faith! How little Peter thought in the gray 
dawn of that cold morning, that there would 
ever be a Pentecost for him, when God would 
honor him as rarely, if ever, he had honored man 
before. There may be some one here to-night 
who needs just this word of encouragement. 
You have known the Lord, and he was kind to 
you as he was to Peter. You have denied 
him, and your heart bleeds to-night because 
you did it, and you fear to come back to his 
presence again. O my brother, let me preach 
to you the hopefulness of this rich gospel! 
Even from the dark background of sin and 



90 



THE people's CHEIST 



shame where you stand now, there is a Pente- 
cost for you if, like Peter, you will repent of 
your sin, and return in humble obedience to 
your Saviour's service. And this leads me to 
the reflection that there is a most suggestive 
background to this entire picture of Pentecost. 
The background is " an upper room " where for 
days and weeks these men and women so heroic 
now had waited in deep humility and pleading 
before God — waited to be given spiritual power 
from on high. What tender days those must 
have been ! Mary, the mother of Jesus, was 
there ; and John, the beloved disciple, who had 
laid his head on Jesus' breast at the last supper ; 
and Thomas, who had thrust his hand into the 
pierced side of Jesus before he could believe. 
They were waiting for power from on high 
before going out to proclaim the Word of him 
they loved so well. At last it came, — the spir- 
itual baptism that John had foretold beside the 
Jordan, and Jesus had promised in that last 
sacred hour of separation. And lo ! their 
timidity was gone, their fear of men, their fear 
of death ; onl}^ their deep love for Jesus, and 
the importance of his message, possessed their 
souls : all else was insignificant. With throb- 
bing hearts they went out to the conquest of 
the world. So, brothers and sisters, if we are 
to win great victories for our Lord, there must 



PETEE AND HIS METHODS AT PENTECOST 91 

be a background of prayer. If we would have 
the multitude of perishmg souls about us res- 
cued from the thraldom of sin, we must pray 
as these heroic souls prayed before the first 
Pentecost. 

" Such prayer would bring another Pentecost, 
and we need such a season to-day. We want 
the world to be evangelized; but we must re- 
member that he who redeemed it, and com- 
manded his apostles to evangelize it, forbade 
them to leave Jerusalem on their glorious mis- 
sion till they were endued with power from on 
high. . . . There never was and never will be 
a substitute for this spiritual power, this holy 
anointing." 

We are much better organized for our work 
than were these first Christian workers, but we 
must not depend too much upon our church 
machinery; for, after all, the church organiza- 
tion is only a cistern, useless enough unless it is 
full of the water of life. How ineffectual would 
be our great and expensive water system for tlie 
city of Boston, if Chestnut Hill reservoir were 
empty ! So a church's machinery may be per- 
fect, yet multitudes die at its very doors of 
spiritual thirst. The church must abound in 
spiritual life that comes only through the chan- 
nel of prayerful consecration. 

Out on the great sage-brush plains, where all 



92 



THE people's CHRIST 



is parched and dry, men bore down hundreds 
and sometimes thousands of feet into the heart 
of the earth, until they come on streams of 
water that flow from mountain reservoirs far 
away out of sight, and living water bursts out in 
the desert and flows perpetually for the thirsty. 
The church ought to be an artesian well in the 
sin-burdened deserts of the world. The cry- 
ing demand is for increased spiritual life in the 
church. Give us that, and the deadly grip of 
materialism will be thrown off, souls will be 
converted, revivals will spring up as naturally 
as flowers and foliage come in spring. Have 
you never watched how harmoniously and natur- 
ally the springtime comes ? The sunshine im- 
parts new life to the roots of the trees, and 
upwards, as blood bounds from the heart, new 
life is given to the branches, covering them 
with abundant leaf and flower. The birds catch 
the inspiration of this springtime revival ; and 
from forest tree and orchard bough ten thou- 
sand robins and bobolinks and thrushes sing, — 
not because they ought to, but because they 
cannot help it. The necessity comes from the 
very joyousness of their hearts. So when the 
church gets close to God in daily communion, 
— at family altar, in secret closet, in pure, 
patient, cheerful life, — on such a church the 
Sun of Righteousness arises, the warmth of spir- 



PETER AND HIS METHODS AT PENTECOST 93 



itual sunshine penetrates to the very roots of 
its life, and the conversion of sinners and rescu- 
ing of perishing men and women are the natural 
fruitage of its perpetual springtime glory. 

The kind of preaching so effective on this 
historic occasion is also of the greatest suggest- 
ive value to us. It was Jesus, and the Cross, 
and the Resurrection; but it was the definite 
personal relation of the listening audience to 
these great truths, upon which Peter put the 
emphasis. 

It was a very different sermon from that 
preached to Cornelius. When Peter preached 
to murderers, he left no doubt on their minds 
as to whom he meant. He might have preached 
on Corinthian impurity, or Roman idolatry, all 
day, and not made a single convert; but with 
splendid courage, and no less splendid common 
sense, he thundered in their trembling ears their 
own personal sin against the Christ they had 
taken " with wicked hands " and had " crucified 
and slain." No wonder they "were pricked in 
their hearts " when they heard that. Men are 
still pricked in their hearts when they hear that 
kind of preaching. Do you say they will not 
go to hear such preaching now ? I answer, they 
cannot stay away from hearing it. 

An empty thundering against sin in the 
abstract will empty the pews fast enough ; but 



94 



THE people's CHEIST 



a heart-searching rebuke of the blood-red sins 
that scorch the souls of the men who listen, if 
given by a man who is in truth the messenger 
of Jesus, will not lack for hearers in this or any 
age ; and the same response will come back now 
as to Peter, " Men and brethren, what shall we 
do ? " We must preach to the consciences of 
men. Inspector Byrnes of New York says : 
" The great lieutenant of every police officer is 
that mysterious thing called conscience. You 
let a man try to deceive himself and lie to him- 
self about himself, and that something comes 
knocking up against the shell of his body, and 
thumping on his ribs with every heart-beat, and 
pounding on his skull until his head aches, 
and he wishes he were dead, and groans in 
agony for relief. It is the same conscience 
that makes a criminal 'give himself away,' if 
one only knows how to awaken it, or stir it into 
activity. I never let a man know for what he 
is arrested. He may have committed a dozen 
more crimes of which I know nothing. If I 
lock him up alone, and leave him to the black 
walls and his guilty conscience for three or four 
hours, while he pictures the possible punishment 
due him for all his crimes, he comes presently 
into my hands like soft clay in the hands of the 
potter. Then he is likely to tell me much more 
than I ever suspected." So the conscience is 



PETER AND HIS METHODS AT PENTECOST 95 

the great lieutenant of every preacher of the 
Gospel. And this is not a lesson for the pulpit 
alone, for one of the most suggestive features 
of the Pentecost revival is that the church-mem- 
bers were all preachers that day. It was not 
Peter's sermon alone, but a hundred and twenty 
men and women in hand-to-hand, heart-to-heart 
conflict with the astonished multitude ; and no 
doubt many who were converted in the forenoon 
were the most effective preachers among their 
old friends and associates in the afternoon. Ah ! 
my brethren, give us the same conditions here, 
and Pentecost shall come to Dorchester Heights. 

Finally, this picture ought to lead us to have 
courage to expect immediate results from the 
faithful preaching of the Gospel. One of the 
most dangerous errors that ever was propagated 
by the enemy of souls — an error that paralyzes 
the tongue of the preacher and the prayer of 
the church — is that Christianity is only a system 
of culture, and that souls are to be ransomed by 
gradual stages. Christianity does indeed culti- 
vate souls. Civilization, with all its inventions 
and arts and comforts, attends Christianity 
wherever it prevails ; but its first great work is 
to bring life to the dead. 

You cannot cultivate until there is life. You 
might as consistently lay out a plan of educa- 
tion for a dead man as develop a scheme of 



96 



THE people's CHRIST 



spiritual culture for an unconverted sinner. 
Men and women are " dead in trespasses and 
in sins." What they need is spiritual resurrec- 
tion — the spell of sin must be broken. The 
heart with its love of bad things must be cleansed 
so that it will love the good and abhor the evil. 

That work God did at once for the repenting 
sinners at Pentecost ; and, glory be to his name, 
he has lost neither his willingness nor his 
power ! 



OUR SISTER PHCEBE, THE DEACONESS 97 



VII 

OUE SISTER PHCEBE, THE DEACONESS 

" I commend unto you Phoebe our sister, who is a dea- 
conesp of the churcli that is at Cenchrese; that ye receive her 
in the Lord, worthily of the saints, and that ye assist her in 
whatsoever matter she may have need of you; for she herself 
also hath been a succourer of many, and of mine own self." 
— Bom. xvi. 1 {Revised Version, marginal reading). 

TTTE have to go into the margin here to find 
' ^ the word deaconess ; in the text it is ren- 
dered servant. It is one of the strange illustra- 
tions of the power of prejudice and conservatism 
on really good men. For if this same word had 
been used to describe the church office of a man, 
it would have been translated deacon, as it is in 
many other places in the New Testament ; but 
because it touches the vexed question of a 
woman's right to official relation to the church, 
it was impossible to bring the word deaconess 
nearer than the margin. 

Nevertheless, it is sure that the order of dea- 
conesses made its mark so plainly on the track 
of early church history that it has been impossi- 
ble for its footprints to be entirely obliterated. 
We make no claim for the deaconess move- 
ment that it is anything new in the religious 



98 



THE people's CHEIST 



world, but rather, as Frances Willard aptly puts 
it, a revival of one of "the lost arts," more 
important than any that used to fire the elo- 
quence of Wendell Phillips. 

The occasion of this commendation of Phoebe 
by the Apostle Paul was her visit to Rome, prob- 
ably on official business for the church, and quite 
possibly to carry this very letter to the Romans, 
in which she is so generously commended. 
The description that is given of Phoebe and 
the character of her work, as well as the refer- 
ences made to the official service of other women 
in the early church, very clearly mark the dis- 
tinction between the order of deaconesses and 
the nuns or sisterhoods of the Roman Catholic 
Church. Dr. De Sanctis, who for many years 
occupied a high official position at Rome, de- 
scribes three classes who take the veil as nuns : 
" First, young girls who become interested in 
religion, and, blindly following the path of 
piety, believe the priest's declarations against 
conjugal love and domestic affection as unholy, 
and tending to eradicate the love of Christ. 
Second, those who, failing to captivate the 
regard of men, are yet conscious of an irresisti- 
ble need of loving some object, and therefore 
seek to be loved, as they say, by the Lord Jesus 
Christ, who is represented as a young man of 
marvelous beauty and most winning look, Avith 



OUR SISTER PHCEBE, THE DEACONESS 99 

a heart shining with love, and seen transparent 
in his breast. Third, those who, being edu- 
cated from childhood in the nunnery, remain 
there and become nuns without knowing why, 
and give up with alacrity a world which they 
have never seen." The order of deaconesses is 
now, and always was, something entirely differ- 
ent from this. Canon Sumner well says : " It 
is surely a mistake to suppose that nuns and 
deaconesses are synonymous terms. Convents 
are ostensibly houses for the sheltering of those 
who think that they can serve God better by 
retiring from the world for the purposes of 
meditation and prayer. Deaconess institutions 
are for those women who desire, in a stated, 
formal, and authorized manner, to be set apart 
for active work in the church of God. The two 
are wide as the poles apart." 

I have detained you at considerable length 
with this point because I fear that the revival of 
the deaconess movement has awakened a fear in 
the minds of some that we were launching on 
the religious seas a species of Protestant nun- 
nery. This is not so. The deaconess was in 
early times, and is to be to-day, selected from 
the mature women of the church, whose special 
gifts and graces indicate their usefulness as 
helpers in that office, just as a steward or class- 
leader or Sunday-school superintendent is se- 



100 



THE people's CHEIST 



lected. Slie is placed under no vow, but is free 
to act under the impulse of the Spirit of Christ, 
who reigns in the heart. The founder of the 
Paris Deaconess Institute says : " No vows, no 
poverty, no monastic obedience. We took as 
the ground of our efforts not the pretence of 
salvation by works, but the duty of witnessing 
by works our love to Him who came down from 
heaven to save us." 

It seems strange that such an institution 
should ever have been permitted to die out of 
the religious world. It can only be explained 
by studying the growth of monachism in the 
church. It is interesting to note that in the last 
three hundred years every revival of spirituality 
in the church has been marked by an increased 
liberality toward woman, and an effort to utilize 
her as a practical force in church work. 

We may see this in Holland in the years just 
before the Puritan fire burned its way across the 
Atlantic to Plymouth Rock. Gov. Bradford 
gives this quaint picture of a good Dutch dea- 
coness in Amsterdam in 1606 : — 

" She honored her place, and was an ornament 
to the congregation. She usually sat in a con- 
venient place in the congregation, with a little 
birchen rod in her hand, and kept the children 
in great awe from disturbing the congregation. 
She did frequently visit the sick and weak, 



OUR SISTEE PHCEBE, THE DEACONESS 101 

especially women, and, as there was need, called 
out maids and young women to watch and to do 
them other helps as their necessity did require ; 
and if they were poor, she would gather relief 
for them of those that were able, or acquaint 
the deacons ; and she was obeyed as a mother 
in Israel, and an officer in Christ." 

No doubt the inferior social position of women 
at this time was sufficient to make abortive the 
attempt to re-establish the order of deaconesses 
permanently among our Puritan fathers and 
mothers. 

I have only time to glance for a moment at 
the most wonderful modern development of the 
deaconess movement in Germany, and yet it, 
too, was the outcome of a spiritual awakening. 
A young German pastor named Fliedner goes 
over to England and meets Elizabeth Fry, and 
wanders on to Scotland and meets Thomas 
Chalmers, and in contact with these great souls 
his heart is lighted with a holier fire. From 
beside Dr. Chalmers he writes home : " The Lord 
greatly quickens me." Now when a man is 
genuinely quickened in soul by the Lord, it 
always gets into his hands and feet. It is ever 
as it was with Peter on the housetop. His 
heavenly vision is only a preparation for the 
messenger who says, " Three men seek thee ; " 
and the quickening of that revelation from God 



102 



THE people's CHRIST 



is soon being put into the fleet steps that carry 
him toward tlie house of Cornelius. 

Fliedner was no exception. He had scarcely 
reached his home in Kaiserwerth, before a poor 
woman, a discharged convict, knocked at his 
door for sympathy and help. Fliedner and his 
noble wife fitted up their garden-house, twelve 
feet square, for her ; but the winds were only 
too glad to carry news like that, and others 
came ; then a good girl from Fliedner's church 
started a knitting-school, and on it went. 

That little garden-house, twelve feet square, 
has grown into a marvelous institution indeed, 
— a great system of reformatories, hospitals and 
schools. The first deaconesses were from these 
reformed women, who, having been ransomed by 
the devotion of others, consecrated their re- 
deemed lives to the same blessed work. To-day 
there is a splendid system of institutions in 
KaiserAverth with an income of a million dollars 
a year, with more than a score of affiliated houses 
in Germany, Italy, England, Asia Minor, Syria, 
and Northern Africa. 

In Germany was witnessed the first Methodist 
venture in this direction ; and although German 
society and government have presented in many 
ways a very unfriendly front to Methodism, jet 
these Methodist deaconesses have so won the 
hearts of the public that free steam and street 



OUR SISTER PHCEBB, THE DEACOKESS 103 

car accommodations are granted them. The 
"forward movement" among the Wesleyans in 
England, the impulse of which is carrying on 
the grand work of the West Central Mission in 
London under the direction of Mark Guy Pearse 
and Hugh Price Hughes, two as heroic and 
dauntless spirits as Methodism has ever pro- 
duced, has as one of its marked characteristics 
the revival of the deaconess. They call them 
the " Sisters of the People," but their service 
is identical with the deaconess of the early 
church and of Methodism in America. 

It seems strange that Methodism should have 
delayed so long the re-establishment of this 
office. Liberality in the treatment of women 
in the work of the church was a part of our 
inheritance from Susanna Wesley, who has been 
well styled " the Mother of Methodism." Once 
during the long absence of her husband she 
opened the doors of the rectory for public wor- 
ship, which she conducted herself. She read 
sermons, prayed, and talked persuasively to the 
people who thronged her home. The curate and 
the conservatives were greatly shocked, and ap- 
pealed to her husband to stop it. In self-defence 
she says : — 

" I chose the best and most awakening ser- 
mons we had. Last Sunday I believe we had 
about two hundred liearers, and yet many went 
away for want of room." 



104 



THE people's CHRIST 



One can see here the germ of woman's free- 
dom in the Methodist class-meeting and love- 
feast, which has developed through the Sunday- 
school and the Woman's Home and the Woman's 
Foreign Missionary Societies. 

And now that this deaconess plant is taking 
such a firm root in our congenial soil, we may 
really hope that Methodism is going to take 
Florence Nightingale's advice, and in the near 
future keep clear of all jargons about man's 
work and woman's work, and go her way straight 
to God's work in simplicity and singleness of 
heart, each one doing with all the might what 
each one can do best. 

The mission of the deaconess and the charac- 
ter of her work cannot be better set forth than 
in these words of Paul, in our text, in com- 
mendation of Phoebe. The church is urged to 
be careful of her, because " she herself also 
hath been a succourer of many." She is to be 
peculiarly the church's hand of succor held 
out to those who are pursued by trials and 
sorrows. 

The need of the church at the present hour, 
in grappling with the new problems of our great 
and our rapidly growing cities, no doubt ex- 
plains the rapidity with which Methodist Dea- 
coness Homes have sprung up in Chicago, New 
York, Cincinnati, Minneapolis, Detroit, Phila- 



OUR SISTER PHCEBE, THE DEACONESS 105 

clelpliia, St. Louis, Buffalo, Cleveland, and Bos- 
ton, and the interest which is becoming more 
earnest throughout the whole church. 

Feeling the need of a closer bond of sympa- 
thy between the church and the homes of the 
common people, we hopefully and prayerfully 
say to the deaconess Avhat Mordecai said to 
Esther : " Who knoweth whether thou art come 
to the kingdom for such a time as this ? " The 
fields are white for the harvest. 

How many homesick, lonely ones there are in 
this great city, who might be sought out and 
rescued from peril by such consecrated women ! 
There are thousands of young men and young 
women in this city whose home-life has been 
left behind in the farmhouses and village cot- 
tages of these New England States. " All the 
rivers run into the sea," and the modern city is 
like the sea. All New England and the Prov- 
inces beyond are skimmed every year to supply 
Boston's demand for business energy; and of 
these thousands of young people, most of them 
were reared in Christian homes, and many of 
them consecrated to God in their childhood. 
But the temptations of the city are luring them 
away from the church. We must win them 
back to the old home fireside. 

A young French soldier lay as if dying in a 
hospital in Geneva. They wrote to his father 



106 



THE people's CHRIST 



far away in Brittany, and as soon as possible 
the old white-haired sire of seventy years stood 
beside him. " You must not die ! " cried the 
old man. But the youth protested that nothing 
could tempt his appetite, and the doctors had 
given him over to die. Then the old father 
took from his knapsack one of the common 
loaves of rye bread, such as are eaten by the 
peasants of Brittany. " Here, my son, take this ; 
it was made by your mother." 

The sick lad turned his heavy eyes, and, 
stretching out his hand greedily, cried, " Give 
it me, father ; I am hungry ! " As he ate, his 
eye lighted up, the blood came back to his face, 
and large tears rolled down his cheeks as he 
said, " It's so good, so good ! the bread from my 
home ! " From that hour the soldier began to 
get well. So I believe the deaconess is to help 
us hunt out these homesick hearts, and bring 
them a taste of bread from the old home. And 
no one who has had experience in hunting out 
the lost families in the crowded portions of the 
city will doubt for a moment the possibilities 
for great usefulness for the deaconess in seeking 
out and interesting the children in the Sunday- 
school and the church. 

I was very much touched last j^ear by a story 
in the report of the West Central Mission in 
London, of a playground extemporized out of 



OUR SISTER PHCEBE, THE DEACONESS 107 

the schoolroom under one of the mission halls. 
The Sisters of the Peojjle found that the children 
in the neighborhood knew no games, partly be- 
cause they had no place to play, except in the 
busy streets. They therefore opened the school- 
room three afternoons a week, providing swings, 
skipping-ropes, and instruction in old-fashioned 
English games. It was a capital idea — at least 
so the children thought. The lady who tells 
the story says : " The swings are the greatest 
attraction, and many are the entreaties, ' Swing 
me higher, sister, higher ! ' " 

As I read that, I thought how in another 
sense the children of these great cities are un- 
consciously crying, " Swing me higher, sister, 
higher ! " 

To the Christian Church this cry is ceaselessly 
coming. From cramped and dreary homes, from 
dirty and over-crowded attics, from drunken 
and brawling alleys, above the roar of ruthless 
traffic, from sick-beds and broken hearts, the 
cry comes evermore, " O bride of Jesus, sister 
of all the little ones for whom he died, swing 
me higher, still higher ! into a purer air, 
where I may feel the 'joy of power' above 
the mud and fog, nearer to heaven, nearer to 
God!" 

To all who love the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
long to see his triumph in the earth, — in the 



108 



THE people's CHRIST 



words of Paul with which we began, and having 
in mind all the noble women who shall present 
themselves for this blessed work, — "I commend 
unto you Phoebe our sister, who is a deaconess 
of the church." 



SPIRITUAL NATURALIZATION 109 



VIII 



SPIRITUAL NATURALIZATION 



" Giving thanks unto the Father which hath made us 
meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints of 
hght; who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, 
and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son." 



— Col. i. 12, 13. 

n^HE Bible picture of human life is full of 



dramatic power. It is that of an intelli- 
gent, hoping, aspiring, deathless soul, either 
struggling with spiritual enemies mighty in 
power and terrible in malignity, or held in the 
grasp of these evil forces a helpless slave. An 
immortal spirit winged with faith and hope, lured 
upward by white-winged seraphs, or tempted 
downward by dark demons from the pit. 

There is an old picture of a scene in ancient 
Babylon. It is the " Chariot Race." It is a strange 
scene. There are chariots of brass, chariots of 
silver, chariots of iron, chariots of gold, all in 
one mad rush for the mastery. Excited, half- 
crazed charioteers lean forward in their chariots 
and lash the already frenzied steeds to a still 
wilder pace. Here and there is a broken chariot, 
a fallen steed, an overthrown driver crashed, 




110 



THE people's CHEIST 



bleeding, and dying, in the dust and debris of 
the wild arena. But the charioteers pay no 
heed to these, but rush by with the speed of the 
wind and the awful frenzy of the demon. 

There is in this some suggestion of the Bible 
picture of human life. Immortal, never-dying 
souls, full of hope, full of ambition, in their 
chariots — some of brass, some of silver, some 
of iron, some of gold — are making the one 
breathless race of life from the cradle to the 
grave. And to add intensity to the picture, the 
curtain is drawn aside, and we are permitted to 
see that the whole spiritual universe is inter- 
ested in, and taking part in, this whirling, rush- 
ing tide of human souls. That which we see 
outwardly of race and struggle is only a faint 
picture of the inward conflict that is going on 
in the great heart of humanity. 

The critical passages of a man's life are 
not the outward happenings, but the inward, 
invisible, unjournalized, unspoken experiences 
through which the heart passes. Victor Hugo, 
in drawing his greatest character in fiction, 
Jean Valjean, says : " There is a spectacle grander 
than the sky, it is the interior of the soul. 
Conscience," he declares, "is the chaos of chi- 
meras, envies, and attempts, the furnace of 
dreams, the lurking place of ideas we are 
ashamed of ; it is the pandemonium of sophistry, 



SPIRITUAL NATURALIZATION 111 

the battle-field of the passions. At certain hours 
look through the livid face of a reflecting man ; 
look into his soul, peer into the darkness. Be- 
neath the external silence, combats of giants 
are going on there, such as v/e read of in Homer ; 
melees of dragons and hydras, and clouds of 
phantoms such as we find in Milton. A glori- 
ous thing is the infinitude which every man 
bears within him, and by which he desperately 
measures the volitions of his brain and the 
actions of his life." Paul paints the same pict- 
ure with a few simple but skilful touches 
when he says to the Ephesians : " Put on the 
whole armor of God, that ye may be able to 
stand against the wiles of the devil; for we 
wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against 
principalities, against powers, against the rulers 
of the darkness of this world, against spiritual 
wickedness in high places." The Bible picture 
we have before us is like this, and comprehends 
tlie epochs of that race from the deliverance of 
the soul by the grace of God out of the grip 
of the power of darkness, on to that final epoch 
of the good man's history when he shall enter 
into the inheritance of the saints in light. It 
begins in darkness, and ends in fadeless light. 
We have first a memorable deliverance. 

" Who hath delivered us from the power of 
darkness." 



112 



THE people's CHEIST 



There can be no doubt but that the plain, 
simple teaching of the Bible is that the world, 
the flesh, and the devil, with all their troop of 
passions, appetites, and habits, bind the natural 
man in chains of bondage. It is not taught 
that men and women are as wicked as they 
might be, or as they may become ; but it is 
taught that the only way of salvation for any 
human soul lies in divine deliverance from the 
grasp of the power of darkness. 

There is no other door into the fold of Christ 
except that one of entire cleansing from sin. 
If the butcher have a tainted spot in his quarter 
of beef, the only possible chance to save that 
which is good, even with the strongest preserva- 
tives, is the sharp knife that cuts out that which 
is already spoiled. So we are taught that sin is 
not a salvable article in God's universe, — it 
must be utterly separated from it. It is not 
enough that we simply cease to sin, and begin 
in the future to do well ; we must be cleansed 
from the sins of the past, we must be delivered 
from the poiver of darkness. 

David tried that method of simply keeping 
silent about his past sins ; he tried, as many do 
to-day, to simply hush up and cover up his sins. 
I kept silence^ he says. But underneath that 
silence his very bones roared. He could not 
get rid of sin by simply keeping silent ; there it 



SPIRITUAL NATURALIZATION 113 

was in all its nakedness, standing out glaring in 
the light of God. "Memories met him and 
whispered in his ear, faces rose up and came 
near, and, looking at him, dumbly clamored 
against him. Fingers pointed at him. Nature 
seemed allied with conscience, and as he passed 
there came strange voices, looks, hints, whispers, 
evil omens, as if all the world knew all about it 
and shrank from this dreadful man. Above him 
was a God whom he feared to face. Beneath 
him was a blackness which he shuddered to 
think of, for in every man's heart sin means 
hell — it can mean nothing else." 

You remember that weird and tragic story of 
Bulwer Lytton's, in which he tells of the mur- 
derer who tried to bury his crime. But the 
black pool would not hide his secret, and there, 
in the dried-up river-bed, lay the victim. He 
hid the accusing body in the forest, but the 
winds swept away the leaves and flung him 
again into sight. We have no power in our- 
selves to undo the past. We cannot hush it 
up. Its voices go on and on forever clamoring 
against us. We cannot bury it. It rises and 
pursues us. Francis I., King of France, stood 
counseling with his officers how he could take 
his army into Italy, when Ameril, the fool of 
the court, leaped out from a corner of the room 
and said, " You had better be consulting how 



114 



THE people's CHRIST 



you will get your army back ; " and it was found 
that Francis I., and not Ameril, was the fool. 
Instead of consulting of the best way of getting 
into sin, men would better consult as to whether 
they will be able to get out of it. 

The Gospel comes to deliver men from the 
power of darkness. We have as the result of 
this deliverance a translation, ar naturalization, 
into an honorable citizenship. Paul says, " Trans- 
lated us into the kingdom of his dear Son." 
This word " translated " is very significant. It 
means an absolute removal into another con- 
dition or sphere. It is the word used in rela- 
tion to Enoch, who was carried up to heaven 
without passing through the gateway of death. 
So being delivered from the power of darkness, 
the soul is consciously translated, — removed 
into another spiritual kingdom. And I think 
the atmosphere of this age, more than any age 
in the past, is in sympathy with this doctrine 
of a conscious spiritual knowledge of the where- 
abouts of the soul. The great mass of Chris- 
tian believers in this age have come to believe 
that, as Mrs. Willing says, " they may know 
whether they are to spend eternity wailing with 
devils or shouting with angels. Their salvation 
is not a mere numerical chance in a divine lot- 
tery, but according to law based upon character, 
which means volition, freedom of choice. They 



SPIRITUAL NATURALIZATION 115 



are no longer to gage their piety by ceaseless 
wadings through dismal swamps of doubt, their 
most helpful symptom a perpetual moan, — 

' Do I love the Lord, or no ? 
Am I His, or am I not ? ' 

But even the little children may know of a 
surety that they have passed from death unto 
life." 

And, my brethren, it is dignified and noble citi- 
zenship into which we have been translated. St. 
Paul, the writer of our text, himself considered 
it high honor that he was a Roman citizen. Yet 
how much more dignity and power and honor 
have accrued to Paul through his citizenship in 
the kingdom of J esus ! His Roman citizen- 
ship, proud as it was, did not save him from 
stripes and imprisonment, and finally an igno- 
minious death. But if you were in the city of 
Rome to-day, and would walk down the Corso, 
there in the Piazza Colonna you might see a 
column a hundred and sixty-eight feet high that 
was originally built to commemorate the victo- 
ries won by Marcus Aurelius in the Marcoman- 
nic wars. The imperial statue once surmounted 
it, but it was taken down by Sextus V., and a 
statue of St. Paul ten feet high was put in its 
place. How significant is that monument of 
St. Paul on the summit of the imperial pillar! 



116 



THE people's CHRIST 



The poor prisoner, persecuted, despised, be- 
headed, is exalted to glory and honor, surmount- 
ing the memorials of the old Roman emperor's 
Tictories. It indicates the triumph of Chris- 
tianity over Paganism, the dethronement of a 
proud imperialism by the power of the cross. 
It bears witness to the moral power of the 
Gospel, as incomparably superior to the military 
power of Rome. The latter expired fifteen 
centuries ago ; the former still lives, " the power 
of God unto salvation to every one that be- 
lie veth." So far from growing old, it is always 
renewing its youth. It never had so wide an 
influence in this world as at this moment. Let 
us not fail to appreciate the dignity of this 
heavenly citizenship. 

When I come to you with the Gospel of Jesus, 
I am calling jou to a higher, nobler, more hon- 
orable station than jou have ever known. 

You have been toiling hard and struggling 
for earthly positions that, after all, are only 
temporary and shadowy in possession. For the 
last few months we have seen great multitudes 
of men, prominent citizens, struggling for offi- 
cial appointments. If sinners were as anxious 
to get spiritual admittance and exaltation in the 
kingdom of heaven as some men are to secure 
office for themselves or friends, the kingdom of 
heaven would suffer violence, and the violent 



SPIEITUAL NATURALIZATIOK 117 



"VYOuld take it by force. Oh, let me call you all 
this morning to the lofty stations awaiting you 
in the spiritual kingdom ! 

But the best of it all is, that this deliverance 
and new citizenship shall end in a glorious in- 
heritance. " Which hath made us meet to be 
partakers of the inheritance of the saints in 
light." 

After a while, blessed be God, we shall go 
home, and in the great court of the universe, 
and with him who spake as never man spake as 
our voluntary attorney to plead our cause, we 
will claim our inheritance. Some years ago an 
Englishman of a noble family became dissipated, 
went to sea, became a wanderer on the face of 
the earth, and, after drifting about all over the 
world, he was finally landed penniless in San 
Francisco. There he lived on the streets for 
years, from hand to mouth. One day a letter 
came bidding him come home and claim a great 
estate, and in the letter was a draft for a thou- 
sand pounds to come home on. What did he 
do? He went to the barber-shop and took a 
bath ; his hair was trimmed, his unkempt beard 
was shaved, his rags went to the ragman, and 
he was dressed like a gentleman ; and he who 
had been but a poor tramp on the face of the 
earth, crossed the continent in a drawing-room 
car, and hurried over the sea to claim his man- 



118 



THE people's CHRIST 



sioii So to the poor, wandering sons of God, 
degenerated by sin and a wicked life, God sends, 
bidding tliem get ready to come home, and 
knowing, as the English solicitor did, how bank- 
rnpt we are, he sends spiritual wealth enough 
tc cleanse us and clothe us, and lend dignity and 
cheer to our faces, so that we may not creep 
home like ragged tramps, but come home like 
sons to the father's house. 

And when we are ready he calls us across the 
seas to claim the mansion that is being prepared 
for us. Just what that blessed inheritance shall 
be, we may not know, but the most precious 
things of the universe are used in God's Word 
to make its glories known to us. 

All resources are in his hand. He planted 
the geld in the mountains and the silver in the 
rocks. He buried the diamonds in the depths 
of the earth. He formed the pearls in the sea. 
All resources are his, all love is in his heart, all 
beauty is in his mind. 



SOUECES OF AMERICAN NATIONAL LIFE 119 



IX 

THE SOUECES OF AMEEICAN NATIONAL 
LIFE 

A THANKSGIVING SERMON 

" Have we not taken to us horns by our own strength ? " 
— Amos vi. 13. 

"Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord." — Ps. 
xxxiii. 12. 

" He hath not dealt so with any nation." — Ps. cxlvii. 20. 

STANDING at Gettysburg, one of the great- 
est battle-fields of the Republic, a place 
hallowed by the blood of thousands of American 
heroes. Senator Ingalls of Kansas made this 
remarkable statement in a public address : — 

" The purification of politics is an iridescent dream. 
Government is force. Politics is a battle for supremacy. 
Parties are the armies. The Decalogue and the Golden Rule 
have no place in a political campaign. The object is success. 
To defeat the antagonist and expel the party in power is the 
purpose. In war it is lawful to deceive the adversary, to 
hire Hessians, to purchase mercenaries, to mutilate, to kill, 
to destroy. The commander who lost a battle through the 
activity of his moral nature would be the derision and jest 
of history. This modern cant about the corruption of poli- 
tics is fatiguing in the extreme. It proceeds from the 
tea-custard and syllabub dilettanteism, the frivolous and 
desultory sentimentalism of epicenes." 



120 



THE people's CHPvIST 



Surely Christian men, Tvitliout regard to poli- 
tics, may be pardoned for uniting in thanks- 
giving that a man capable of uttering such 
sentiments bids fair to fail of re-election to the 
United States Senate. And yet, he is doubtless 
a representative of far too large a class of 
American citizenship, who look upon our na- 
tional heritage as the product of American 
shrewdness or American luck. It has occurred 
to me, that, in connection with our national 
Thanksgiving week, it might be of profit to us 
all, and of special interest to the young, to care- 
fully trace the streams of life and influence 
which united in the formation of our national 
character. America has a moral history, all her 
own, which is very unique. Dr. Gray of the 
Interior well says : " It is utterly impossible to 
tell the story of American history while ignor- 
ing the element of religion. The only common 
bond which runs through the biographies of 
American explorers, pioneers, and founders of 
States, is the thread of a Christian faith, the 
power of a religious purpose." 

It is impossible to read the history of Christo- 
pher Columbus, human and faulty as he was in 
mau}^ respects, without being impressed with 
the deep religious sentiment which made all his 
enterprises grand and solemn to himself. When 
he set sail on his first voyage across the ocean, 



SOURCES OF AMERICAN NATIONAL LIFE 121 

he wrote in his journal, which he kept for the 
inspection of the Spanish sovereigns : " There- 
fore your highnesses, as Catholic Christians and 
princes, lovers and promoters of the holy Chris- 
tian faith, and enemies of the sect of Mahomet, 
and of all idolatries and heresies, determined to 
send me, Christopher Columbus, to the said 
parts of India, to the said princes and people 
and lands, and discover the nature and disposi- 
tion of them all, and the means to be taken for 
the conversion of them to our holy faith," And 
when at last the weary voyage was over, and on 
that eventful Friday morning in October he 
first beheld the New World, each boat that car- 
ried himself and his officers to the land carried 
the standard of the cross ; and when his feet 
touched the new land, he threw himself on his 
knees, kissed the earth, and returned thanks to 
God, with tears of joy. On his return home 
from the voyage, in the midst of a fearful storm 
at midnight, the officers and crew called on the 
aid of heaven. According to the superstitious 
customs of their time, a lot was cast for the per- 
formance of a barefooted pilgrimage to the 
shrine of Santa Maria de la Cueva in Huelva, 
and the lot fell upon Columbus. The historian, 
Las Casas, devoutly considered this an intima- 
tion from the Deity to Columbus that the fear- 
ful storm was all on his account, to humble his 



122 



THE people's CHRIST 



pride and prevent his arrogating to himself the 
glory of a discovery which was the work of 
God, and for which he had merely been chosen 
as an instrument. 

I call your attention to this incident that you 
may see how universally the religious element 
entered into the thoughts of the people concern- 
ing the discovery of the New World. When 
Columbus finally landed at Palos, on his return, 
the bells were rung, the shops shut, all business 
suspended, and a grand procession was formed 
and marched through the streets to the princi- 
pal church, to return thanks to God. The same 
religious spirit prevailed at the court of Spain 
when Columbus made his report to the sover- 
eigns. In the presence of a great multitude he 
gave an account of the most striking events of 
his voyage and a description of the islands dis- 
covered. He displayed specimens of unknown 
birds and animals ; of rare plants of medicinal 
and aromatic virtues ; of native gold, in dust, in 
crude masses, or labored into barbaric orna- 
ments ; and, above all, the natives of these 
countries, who were objects of mtense and inex- 
haustible interest. All these he pronounced 
mere harbingers of greater discoveries yet to be 
made, which would add realms of incalcalable 
wealth to the dominions of Spain, and whole 
nations of proselytes to the true faith. At the 



SOURCES OF AMERICAN NATIONAL LIFE 123 

close of his address, the king and queen, and the 
brilliant crowd of notable persons present, sank 
on their knees, and raising their clasped hands 
to heaven, their eyes filled with tears of joy and 
gratitude, poured forth thanks and praises to 
God for so great a providence. The historian 
says : — 

"A deep and solemn enthusiasm pervaded that splendid 
assembly, and prevented all common acclamations of tri- 
umph. The anthem, Te Deum Laudamus, chanted by 
the choir of the royal chapel, with the accompaniments of 
instruments, rose in full body of sacred harmony; bearing 
up, as it were, the feelings and thoughts of the auditors to 
heaven, so that it seemed as if in that hour they communi- 
cated with celestial delights." 

Such was the solemn and pious manner in 
which the brilliant court of Spain celebrated 
this sublime event — offering up a grateful 
tribute of melody and praise, and giving glory 
to God for the discovery of another world. 
Washington Irving, to whose Life of Colum- 
bus I am indebted for these facts, declares that 
the great discoverer considered himself selected 
of Heaven as an agent ; that his mind was ele- 
vated above selfish and mercenary views, and 
was filled with the same devout and heroic 
schemes which, in the time of the Crusades, in- 
flamed the thoughts and directed the enterprises 
of the bravest warriors and most illustrious 
princes. The first gold which the New World 



124 



THE people's CHEIST 



yielded to tlie Old gilds the ceiling of one of the 
noblest churches of Rome. Genoa reverently 
preserves the sketch in which the great discov- 
erer, by his own pencil, commemorated his suc- 
cess ; representing himself as the servant of 
God, attended by Providence, and followed by 
Religion. 

The early French discoverers were animated 
by the same spirit. The first colonies planted 
in Florida by the French were of the Huguenots. 
The northern discoveries of New France, which 
was destined to become New England, were 
pursued not wholly nor mostly for adventure or 
wealth, but because devout French Catholics 
desired to requite the Church for her losses 
through the tremendous influences of Luther 
and Calvin in the Old World, by winning to her 
fold the natives of the New. Cartier, La Roche, 
Champlain, and De Monts, were only the stormy 
petrels of this great religious movement. The 
French discoverers that pressed onward around 
Lake Huron, discovering the Mississippi River 
and pursuing it south to the Gulf, were all ani- 
mated by the same religious spirit. It does not 
matter whether you praise or blame them, you 
cannot read history without respecting their 
earnestness and finding yourself convinced that 
it was a genuine religious enthusiasm that fur- 
nished the courage, the self-sacrifice, and the 



SOURCES OF AMERICAN NATIONAL LIFE 125 



sublime endurance necessary to carry them 
through. The early English discoverers were 
of the same spirit and of a still nobler mould. 
Sir Humphrey Gilbert, who lost his life on the 
return voyage from this country, shouted as his 
last message to his fellow voyagers in a com- 
j)anion vessel, "We are as near to heaven by 
sea as by land." The heroic Sir Walter Ra- 
leigh, a step-brother of Gilbert, took up his 
work, and left his mark forever on the New 
World in the State of Virginia and the Caro- 
linas. The religious idea stands out prominent 
in the records left to us of Virginia's coloniza- 
tion ; we read of the faithful Indian chief, 
Manteo, receiving Christian baptism "by the 
commandment of Sir Walter Raleigh," and in- 
vesting him with the rank of feudal baron as 
Lord of Roanoke. 

The whole world knows how completely re- 
ligion dominated the life and character of the 
Pilgrims. George Bancroft says : " Every enter- 
prise of the Pilgrims began from God." Seldom 
have wiser or more reverent words been uttered 
than those of the Puritan Robinson, spoken in 
farewell to the Pilgrims who sailed on the 
Mayflower : — 

"I charge you," said he, "before God and his blessed 
angels, that you follow me no further than you have seen 
me follow the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord has more truth 



126 



THE people's CHRIST 



yet to break forth out of his holy Word. I cannot suffi- 
ciently bewail the condition of the reformed churches, who 
are come to a period in religion, and will go at present no 
further than the instruments of their reformation. Luther 
and Calvin were great and shining lights in their time, yet 
they penetrated not into the whole counsel of God. I be- 
seech you, remember it — 'tis an article of your church 
covenant — that you be ready to receive whatever truth shall 
be made known to you from the written Word of God." 

Edward Winslow, one of the Pilgrim voya- 
gers, writes : — 

"When the ship was ready to carry us away, the brethren 
that stayed at Ley den, having again solemnly sought the 
Lord with us and for us, feasted us that were to go, at our 
pastor's house, being large; where we refreshed ourselves, 
after tears, with singing of psalms, making joyful melody in 
our hearts, as well as with the voice, there being many of the 
congregation very expert in music ; and indeed it was the 
sweetest melody that ever mine ears heard. After this they 
accompanied us to Delft-Haven, where we went to embark, 
and then feasted us again ; and after prayer performed by 
our pastor, when a flood of tears was poured out, they ac- 
companied us to the ship, but were not able to speak one to 
another, for the abundance of sorrow to part. And so, lift- 
ing up our hands to each other, and our hearts for each 
other to the Lord our God, we departed." 

When, after a long and boisterous voyage of 
sixty-three days, they found themselves safely 
moored in the harbor of Cape Cod, even before 
they landed they formed themselves into a body 
politic, by signing a solemn compact, in which 
they declare that they undertake to plant the 
colony " for the glory of God and advancement 
of the Christian faith." 



SOURCES OF AMERICAN NATIONAL LIFE 127 



Such was the quality and spirit of the men 
who laid the foundations of state and national 
life in Massachusetts. One will search in vain 
in the life of these people for the exhibition of 
a spirit like that manifested by Senator Ingalls. 
They did not believe that they had taken unto 
themselves horns by their own strength. Gov- 
ernor Bradford, who was the first governor 
selected in the New World, has left a fragment- 
ary poem on New England, in which he sings, — 

" Famine once we had, 
But other things God gave us in full store, 
As fish and ground-nuts,- to supply our strait, 
That we might learn on Providence to wait; 
And know, by bread man lives not in his need, 
But by each word that doth from God proceed. 
But awhile after plenty did come in, 
From His hand only who doth pardon sin. 
And all did flourish like the pleasant green, 
Which in the joyful spring is to be seen." 

William Tappan describes the early Thanks* 
giving days among these New England colonists. 
He says : — 

" When the old fathers of New England sought to 
Honor the heavens with substance and with first-fruits, 
They with their blessings — all uncounted — summed up 
Their undeservings. 

They praised Jehovah for the wheat sheaves gathered; 
For corn and cattle, and the thrifty orchards; 
Blessings of basket, storehouse, homestead, hamlet; 
Of land and water. 



128 



THE people's CHRIST 



They praised Jehovah for the depth of riches 
Opened and lavished to a world of penury; 
Mines, whose red ore, unpriced, unbought, is poured from 
Veins unexhausted. 

They made confession of their open errors; 
Honestly told God of their secret follies; 
Afresh their service as true vassals pledged Him, 
And then were merry. 

Strong was their purpose ; nature made them nobles ; 
Religion made them kings, to reign forever! 
Hymns of thanksgiving were their happy faces, 
Beaming m music." 

We shall find the same intense religious spirit 
manifest if we follow William Penn and his 
Quakers into New Jersey and Pennsylvania. 
Of all the founders of American life, none did 
more honor to Christianity than William Penn. 
Penn sought in the New World a refuge for his 
persecuted brethren. Having purchased his 
land of Charles II., in deference to the public 
law of the time, he proceeded, in obedience to 
the unwritten law in his own conscience, to 
re-purchase it from the Indians. If Penn's ex- 
ample had been followed throughout, in the 
treatment of the Indians, we would not have 
the dark, disgraceful history behind us which 
shames every student of the Indian question ; 
neither would it be necessary for us to be, at 
present, massing troops in the Northwest, in 
anticipation of a new Indian war. The Indian 



SOURCES OF AMERICAN NATIONAL LIFE 129 

kings gathered in council with the Quakers 
under the shades of the Burlington forests, and 
said, "You are our brothers, and we will live 
like brothers with you. We will have a broad 
path for you and us to walk in. If an English- 
man falls asleep in this path, the Indian shall 
pass him by, and say, He is an Englishman ; 
he is asleep ; let him alone.' The path shall 
be plain ; there shall not be in it a stump to 
hurt the feet." 

Soon after the colony was founded, the genu- 
ineness of Penn's religion was tested in a very 
practical way. A company of traders offered 
six thousand pounds and an annual revenue for 
a monopoly of the Indian traffic between the 
Delaware and the Susquehanna. Penn at this 
time was in very straitened circumstances, and 
the temptation was great ; but he held himself 
bound by his religion to equal laws, and rebuked 
the cupidity of monopoly. " I will not abuse 
the love of God," — such was his decision, — 
" nor act unworthy of his providence, by de- 
filing what came to me clean. No ; let the Lord 
guide me by his wisdom, to honor his name 
and serve his truth and people, that an ex- 
ample and a standard may be set up to the 
nations." 

Penn's neighbor, Lord Baltimore, the founder 
of Maryland, was also moved to his adventures 



130 



THE people's CHRIST 



in the New World by a fervent desire to open a 
refuge for Roman Catholics, who in that day 
were as much persecuted in England as were 
the Quakers. 

Oglethorpe, the founder of Georgia, was also 
a man of noble and splendid philanthropy, who 
sought to open a new field for the poor and un- 
fortunate. Dr. Gray, whom I have already 
quoted, compares him to General Booth of the 
Salvation Army, and his great social scheme of 
founding colonies in South Africa of the res- 
cued victims from the London slums. " No 
colony has so noble, so utterly unselfish, an ori- 
gin, as the fair domain of Georgia, disgraced 
afterwards though it was by the conduct of 
men who had forced themselves into power. 
But this alone of all the thirteen was founded 
as a distinct attempt at wide and practical 
charity. This alone incorporated in its first 
charter a clause forbidding forever the traffic in 
slaves or spirituous liquors within its territorial 
bounds." 

Not only did this spirit of intense reverence 
for religion have to do with the early explora- 
tions and founding of colonies in America, but 
it was a recognized factor in the beginning of 
our national councils. 

In the Constitutional Convention in 1787, 
Benjamin Franklin, the prestige of whose great 



SOURCES OF AMERICAN NATIONAL LIFE 131 



fame has been sometimes claimed by reckless 
champions of infidelity, moved that henceforth 
prayers, imploring the assistance of Heaven and 
its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this 
Assembly every morning before we proceed to 
business." In the course of his short speech in 
support of this motion, he said : — 

"In this situation of this Assembly, groping, as it were, 
in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distin- 
guish it when presented to us, how has it happened, sir, 
that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying 
to the Father of Lights to illuminate our understandings ? 
In the beginning of the contest with Britain, when we were 
sensible of danger, we had daily prayers in this room for the 
Divine protection. Our prayers, sir, were heard ; and they 
were graciously answered. To that kind Providence we owe 
this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means 
of establishing our future national felicity. And have we 
now forgotten that powerful Friend ? I have lived, sir, a 
long time; and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs 
I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men! 
And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his 
notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his 
aid ? We have been assured, sir, in the Sacred Writings, 
that ' except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain 
that build it.' I firmly believe this; and I also believe that, 
without his concurring aid, we shall succeed in this politi- 
cal building no better than in the building of Babel; we 
shall be divided by our little partial local interests, our 
projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become 
a reproach and a by-word down to future ages. And, what 
is worse, mankind may hereafter, from this unfortunate 
instance, despair of establishing government by human 
wisdom, and leave it to chance, war, and conquest." 



132 



THE people's CHRIST 



It is a long marcli down hill from this sub- 
lime utterance of Franklin to the " phosphor- 
escent and morally putrescent sentences " of 
Senator Ingalls, with which I began. America 
belongs to Christianity. Its discovery, coloni- 
zation, and national development have all been 
pervaded by a spirit of reverence for Jesus 
Christ. The men who propose to open the 
Columbian World's Fair on the Sabbath, propose 
to do violence to the spirit of American history. 
The men who are trying to banish the Bible 
from the public schools are, at the least, indif- 
ferent to all the primal sources of our American 
national life. As Christian people we need to 
be loyal to the Christian history of our country. 
We are citizens of a continent which, from the 
White Mountains to the Sierra Nevadas, has 
been baptized in the name of Jesus. It is not 
only by the Hoang-ho, the Nile, or the Congo, 
that the missionary of the cross is the explorer 
of continents : it was as true of the Merrimac, 
the Susquehanna, the Ohio, the Mississippi, and 
the Columbia. 

God bless our native land! 
Firm may slie ever stand, 

Through storm and night; 
When the wild tempests rave, 
Ruler of wind and wave, 
Do Thou our country save 

By Thy great might I 



SOURCES OF AMERICAN NATIONAL LIFE 



For her our prayers shall rise 
To God above the skies; 

On Him we wait ; 
Thou who art ever nigh, 
Guarding with watchful eye 
To Thee aloud we cry, 

God save the State ! " 



134 



THE people's CHKIST 



X 



OUR BEOTHEE IN RED 

" We are verily guilty concerning our brother." — Gen, 
xliii. 21. 

"TpOR some weeks the daily newspapers have 



had startling head-lines about a threatened 
Indian war in the North-west. That there could 
be a possibility for such a war, is a sad reflection 
on American civilization. These Indians have 
all been born in America. They have been 
reared in the heart of our Government. On 
every side of them there has surged the life of 
our people. That we have failed to win their 
confidence and bind them to us by mutual ties 
of respect and good-will, is one of the saddest 
failures of our time. 

The present excitement in the North-west has 
revived all the cruel and unjust proverbs about 
the Indian. " There is no good Indian but a 
dead Indian," has had the changes rung on it 
again ad nauseam. A few years since, it was my 
privilege, at a banquet in Tremont Temple, 
to hear that justly eminent man, Frederick 




OUR BROTHER IN RED 



135 



Douglass, respond to the toast, " A man's a man 
for a' that," when he was cheered to the echo. 

We have learned to accept the truthfulness of 
Burns's proverb, when applied to the negro, and 
to call him " our brother in black ; " but its 
practical disregard, when applied to the Indian, 
forms one of the darkest threads in the woof of 
our history. The common practice, even among 
well-meaning people, when the claims of the 
Indians are urged, of referring to some bloody 
atrocity committed by this or that tribe or body 
of Indians, as an answer to everything that may 
be said in their behalf, is not only pernicious, 
but cruelly unjust. 

We have within the last five years, on several 
occasions, witnessed atrocities, equal to any- 
thing in Indian history, committed in the midst 
of the civilization of our great cities. We 
have seen the dynamite mangling of innocent 
victims; passenger trains, filled with women 
and children, thrown from the track ; and brutal 
attacks made on honest, unoffending laborers. 
We do not brand the whole Irish or German 
races as anarchists and fiends because of this ; 
we only say that this capacity for fiendishness 
is in every human race. No other race has had 
this capacity, in our day, so cruelly and so fully 
provoked as the Indian. When Columbus re- 
turned to Spain from his first voyage to Amer- 



136 



THE people's CHRIST 



ica, he wrote a letter to Ferdinand and Isabella 
describing the new-found Americans, whom he 
named Indians, in which he says : " I swear to 
your majesties that there is not a better people 
in the world than these, — more affectionate, 
affable, or mild. They love their neighbors as 
themselves ; their language is the sweetest, the 
softest, and the most cheerful, for they alwa3^s 
speak smiling; and although they go naked, 
let your majesties believe me, their customs are 
very becoming. And their king, who is served 
with great majesty, has such engaging manners 
that it gives great pleasure to see him ; and also 
to consider the great retentive faculty of that 
people, and their desire of knowledge, which 
incites them to ask the causes and effects of 
things." 

There seems to be no reason for doubting 
that the term, now used in mockery, " the noble 
red man," was once appropriately applied. The 
Indian was a promising race, however he has 
been degraded by injustice, whiskey, and forced 
pauperism. And it may be doubted if the 
atrocities which at times have been committed 
by bands of Indians, maddened by " a century 
of dishonor," may not be paralleled by white 
atrocities, with Indian victims. 

The spirit which the Western Indian very 
frequently meets with to-day may be inferred 



OUR BROTHER IN RED 



137 



from the following extract from " Arizona and 
Sonora," by Sylvester Mowry. " There is only 
one way," says this proud representative of the 
higher civilization, " to wage war on the 
Apaches. A steady, persistent campaign must 
be made, following them to their haunts, hunt- 
ing them to the fastnesses of the mountains. 
They must be surrounded, starved into coming 
in, surprised, or inveigled by white flags, or any 
other method, human or divine, and then put to 
death. If these ideas shock any weak-minded 
philanthropist, I can only say that I pity him 
without respecting his mistaken sympathy. A 
man might as well have sympathy for a rattle- 
snake or a tiger." 

Is it to be wondered at that the Indian, 
robbed at every turn for generations ; driven 
from place to place in herds at the beck of the 
on-pushing settler, who, in his treatment of the 
Indian, is frequently a " border ruffian " indeed ; 
pursued relentlessly by a spirit of which the 
quotation I have just given is an example, — is 
it to be wondered at that the milder graces of 
Christian character are of tardy growth under 
such treatment? 

Take the case of the Sioux, about whom 
gathers the present excitement. When Captain 
Carver was travelling among the North Ameri- 
can Indians, during the years 17G6 and 1767, 



138 



THE people's CHRIST 



he was most hospitably entertained for seven 
months by the forefathers of the present Sioux. 
And he assures us that when the time came for 
him to depart, three hundred of them accom- 
panied him for a distance on his journey, and 
took leave with expressions of friendship for 
him and good- will toward the great father, the 
English king, of whom he had told them. The 
chiefs wished him to say to the king, " How 
much we desire that traders may be sent to 
abide among us, with such things as we need, 
that the hearts of our young men, our wives 
and children may be made glad. And may 
peace subsist between us so long as the sun, the 
moon, the earth, and the waters shall endure." 
Seventy years later, when the artist Catlin 
made his journeys among the North-American 
Indians, he spent several weeks among the 
Sioux, and says of them : " There is no tribe on 
the continent of finer-looking men, and few 
tribes who are better and more comfortably clad 
and supplied with the necessaries of life. I 
have travelled several years already among 
these people, and I have not had my scalp 
taken, nor a blow struck me, nor had occasion 
to raise my hand against an Indian ; nor has 
my property been stolen as yet to my knowl- 
edge to the value of a shilling, and that in a 
country where no man is punishable by law for 



OUR BROTHER IN RED 



139 



the crime of stealing. That the Indians in 
their native state are drunken, is false, for they 
are the only temperance people, literally speak- 
ing, that ever T saw in my travels, or expect to 
see. If the civilized world are startled at this^ 
it is the fact that they must battle with, not 
with me. These people manufacture no spiritu- 
ous liquors themselves, and know nothing of it 
until it is brought into their country and ten- 
dered to them by Christians." 

I have been assured by army officers, conver- 
sant with Indian affairs, that no Indians in the 
country have been lied to, and tricked, so much 
as the Sioux. Helen Hunt Jackson, that most 
heroic friend of the Indian, tells how the Gov- 
ernment was once forced, against the will of the 
Indian Commissioner, to keep its contract with 
the famous Sioux chief, Spotted Tail. The 
Red Cloud and Spotted Tail bands consented to 
go to the old Ponca Reserve, only after being 
told that all their supplies had been sent to a 
certain point on the Missouri River with a view 
to this move ; and, it being too late to take all 
this freight northward again, they would starve 
if they stayed where they were^ They were 
given a written pledge from the Government 
that they would be allowed to go back in the 
spring. In the spring, no orders came for the 
removal. March passed, April passed — no 



140 



THE people's CHRIST 



orders. Finally, in May, the Commissioner of 
Indian Affairs went himself to hold a council 
with them. When he rose to speak, the chief, 
Spotted Tail, sprang up, walked toward him, 
waving in his hand the paper containing the 
promise of the Government to return them to 
White Clay Creek, and exclaimed, "All the 
men who come from Washington are liars, and 
the bald-headed ones are the worst of all ! I 
don't want to hear one word from you ; you 
are a bald-headed old liar. You have but one 
thing to do here, and that is to give an order 
for us to return to White Clay Creek. Here 
are your written words ; and if you don't give 
this order, and everything here is not on wheels 
inside of ten days, I'll order my young men to 
tear down and burn everything in this part of 
the country ! I don't w^ant to hear anything 
more from you, and I've got nothing more to 
say to you." And he turned his back on the 
Commissioner and walked away. Such language 
as this would not have been borne from unarmed 
and helpless Indians, but when it came from a 
chief with four thousand armed warriors at his 
back, it was another affair altogether. The 
order was written. In less than ten daj^s every- 
thing was " on wheels," and the whole body of 
these Sioux on the move to the country they 
had indicated. The Secretary of the Interior 



OUR BROTHER IN RED 



141 



said, very naively, in his report for that year : 
" The Indians were found to be quite deter- 
mined to move westward, and the promise of 
the Government in that respect was faithfully 
kept." Little praise the Government deserved 
for keeping its promises under the circum- 
stances ! 

In dealing with the Indians the policy of the 
Government has' been to treat them like children 
in forcing them into contracts and treaties, and 
then hold them to the strictest responsibility for 
violation. The New York Examiner^ in an 
editorial article last week, furnishes an example 
of the unfair attitude of public sentiment 
toward the Indian. This editor, speaking of 
the present situation, says : " The power behind 
the whole movement is Sitting Bull. He is a 
great chief, blessed with a ' heap ' of cunning. 
He has a fondness for engineering any enter- 
prise against the whites. In addition to the 
natural antipathy, he has a grudge against our 
Government for pressing the cession of eleven 
millions of acres of the Sioux reservation. Sit- 
ting Bull signed the agreement of transfer only 
when undue pressure was brought to bear. He 
appended his signature under protest, and with 
muttered threats of revenge." Of course it is 
certain proof of the fiendishness of Sitting 
Bull's character and the general unregenerate 



142 



THE people's CHRIST 



condition of his heart, that he isn't ready to 
fall down and worship the people who took him 
by the throat and forced him to sign away his 
right to eleven million acres of land, the title 
of which had been vested in his tribe and 
guaranteed to it by the honor of the United 
States Government ! 

Let the same scheme be tried on some Baptist 
deacon in New England, and see how much of 
love and affection there will be welling up in 
his soul for the people who hold a pistol at his 
head and force him under " undue pressure " to 
deed away his homestead " under protest." 

On last Wednesday, when the joint resolution 
came up in the United States Senate, authoriz- 
ing the Secretary of War to furnish arms and 
ammunition to the North-western States, Mr. 
Voorhees for the Democrats and Mr. Hawley 
for the Republicans united in the declaration 
that if the proposition were one to issue a hun- 
dred thousand rations of food to the starving 
Indians, it would be more consistent with Chris- 
tian civilization. Major-General Miles has re- 
cently stated in public interviews that the 
Indians are being driven to revolt by starvation, 
and that they prefer to die fighting, rather than 
to starve peacefull}^ 

General Miles gives it as his judgment that it 
is an inexpiable crime on the part of the Gov- 



OUR BROTHER IN RED 



143 



ernment to stand silently by and do nothing 
except furnish arms to the whites. 

From what I have seen personally of the 
unscrupulous greed of many frontier settlers to 
get possession of the Indian lands, I fully agree 
with Senator Voorhees, who, m his reply to 
Senator Pierce of Dakota, declared that he 
would take the statement of General Miles far 
sooner than that of a senator who lived near 
the Sioux reservation, and who, with his peo- 
ple, wanted to get the Indian lands as soon 
as possible. " The one was a reliable officer ; 
the other was the fox lying around the pen 
where the geese were, waiting to get some of 
them." 

All the Indian troubles of recent times have 
been brought about by injustice on the part of 
the whites. Our last great Indian war was that 
against the Nez Perces, under their famous chief, 
Joseph. Joseph and myself were born and 
reared in sight of the same great mountains. 
He is only a few years older than I. Those 
mountains are as dear to me as to him, and I 
could not restrain the tears when I read his plea 
to the army officers when he was confined down 
in the flat, sickly Indian Territory. " Give me 
just one little mountain," said Joseph, " and I 
will die content." Joseph fought for that whicli 
the white man calls patriotism when it has been 



144 



THE people's CHRIST 



crowned with success. Joseph's fathers received 
all the early explorers and settlers with a broad 
generosity and manlj^ fellowship. They prided 
themselves on having received Lewis and Clarke, 
Bonneville, Fremont, and other white men, with 
the hand of friendship, and on never having 
falsified their promises. Up to the time of 
Joseph's outbreak, though a number of Nez 
Perces had been killed by white men, only one 
white man had ever fallen at the hand of a Nez 
Perce. Joseph's father joined with the other 
independent chiefs in a formal treaty concluded 
in the Walla Walla Valley, in 1855, by which 
the Indians gave up all claims to certain large 
tracts of lands. 

Old Joseph entered into this contract onl}^ on 
the express stipulation that the Wallowa and 
Imnaha valleys should remain to him and his 
children forever. Soon the white men wanted 
these valleys, and another treaty was made with 
several chiefs, but Joseph refused to have any- 
thing to do with it, and was not even present ; 
but these valleys, that had been guaranteed to 
Joseph on the honor of the United States Gov- 
ernment, were by this new treaty taken from 
him. Joseph's own parable, by which he illus- 
trated the brutal injustice of tliis treatment, 
cannot be improved upon. Said he : " A man 
comes to me and says, ' Joseph, I like your 



OUR BROTHER IN RED 



145 



horses, and I want to buy them.' I say I do not 
want to sell them. He goes to my neighbor 
and says, ' Joseph has some good horses, but he 
will not sell them ; ' and my neighbor says, 
' Pay me, and you may have them.' And he 
does so, and then comes to me and says, ' Joseph, 
I have bought your horses.' " But despite all 
justice and reason, marauders poured into these 
beautiful valleys, the home of his youth, and 
United States troops were sent to compel Joseph 
and his people to remove to a strange reserva- 
tion. Imagine the agony of brave-hearted men 
and women in an emergency like that. And 
yet, with breaking heart, Joseph concluded to 
move. In his own language he says : " I said in 
my heart that rather than have war, I would 
give up my country, I would give up my father's 
grave ; I would give up everything, rather than 
have the blood of white men on the hands of 
my people." It was not easy for Joseph to 
bring his people to consent to move. The 
young men wished to fight. At this time Chief 
Joseph rode one day through his village Avith a 
revolver in each hand, saying he would shoot 
the first one of his warriors to resist the Gov- 
ernment. Finally they gathered together their 
herds of cattle and horses, and began to move. 
A storm came and raised the river so high that 
some of the cattle could not be taken across. 



146 



THE people's CHRIST 



Indian guards were put in charge of the cattle 
left behind. White men attacked these guards 
and drove away the cattle. Joseph could no 
longer restrain his men. That was the birth of 
the Nez Perce Indian war. Put yourself in the 
place of Joseph, and blame him if you can. 
Nothing in the history of modern warfare sur- 
passes in daring, genius, and bravery, the exploits 
of Joseph, the Nez Perce chief. 

"Defeated in a bitterly contested battle, he 
led his great caravan of two thousand horses or 
more, on which were women, children, old men, 
and old women, the wounded, palsied, and blind, 
by a seemingly impassable trail, interlaced with 
fallen trees, through the ruggedest mountains, 
to the Bitter Root Valley, where he made a 
treaty of forbearance with the inhabitants, pass- 
ing by settlements containing banks and stores, 
and near farms rich with stock, but taking noth- 
ing and hurting no one. So he pushed on ; he 
crossed the Rocky Mountains twice, the Yellow- 
stone and the Missouri rivers, and was within 
one day's march of Canada when he was taken." 
During all this time the United States Govern- 
ment had thousands of soldiers in the field, 
under skilful and experienced officers like Gen- 
erals Howard and Miles, and had spent millions 
of dollars in coping with this brave young hero. 
Yes, why not say hero ? If we were speaking 



OUR BROTHER IN RED 



147 



of Roman or Grecian wars, or of the exploits 
of some Garibaldi or Kossuth, we should con- 
sider it something magnificent in a race crushed, 
broken, overwhelmed by a hundred years of 
conquest, that it should still be able to inspire 
fear and compel respect for its patriotic devotion 
to the home of its ancestry. If Joseph had 
been of less noble spirit, he need never have 
suffered capture. He himself says : " We could 
have escaped if we had left our wounded behind. 
We were unwilling to do this. We had never 
heard of a wounded Indian recovering while in 
the hands of white men." 

A little company did slip away, and escaped 
across the line ; and when the Government sent 
a commission over there to ask them to come 
back, a squaw named " The-One-That-Speaks- 
Once," and wife of " The-Man-That-Scatters- 
The-Bear," stood up in the council and said: 
"I was over at your country. I wanted to 
raise my children over there, but you did not 
give me any time. I came over to this country 
to raise my children, and have a little peace." 
It ought to make every American's cheek to 
blush, when he contrasts the history of the 
Indians of Canada with that of those in the 
United States. There are one hundred thou- 
sand Indians in Canada, yet, with the exception 
of the little flurry with the half-breeds, a few 



148 



THE people's CHRIST 



years since, the Canadians have had no Indian 
trouble. 

Over there they are called the Indian sub- 
jects of her Majesty," are held amenable to the 
law, and are protected by the law. Bishop 
Whipple, than whom we have no wiser student 
of the Indian question, says : " On one side of 
the line is a nation that has spent five hundred 
million dollars in Indian wars, a people who 
have not a hundred miles between the Atlantic 
and Pacific which has not been the scene of a 
massacre ; a government which has not passed 
twenty years without an Indian war ; not one 
Indian tribe to whom it has given a Christian 
civilization ; and which celebrated its centenary 
by another Indian war. On the other side of 
the line are the same greedy, dominant, Anglo- 
Saxon race, and the same heathen ; yet they 
have not spent one dollar in Indian wars, and 
they never have had a massacre." 

There is nothing so costly as injustice. No 
man, no nation, can ever escape the penalty for 
unjust treatment of the ignorant and the help- 
less. The victim of oppression has for an 
avenger One whose arms are stronger than the 
might of armies. In the words of Helen Hunt 
Jackson, in her song of " Mordecai," I would 
say of the Indian what she says of the despised 
Jew, — 



OUR BROTHER IN RED 

" Make friends with him ! He is of royal line, 
Although he sits in rags. 
Make friends with him, for unawares 
The charmed secret of thy joys he bears ; 
Be glad, so long as his black sackcloth, late 
And early, thwarts thy sun ; for if in hate 
And haste thou plottest for his blood, thy own death- 
Not his, comes from the gallows fifty cubits high." 



SEEMON FRAGMENTS 



I 



THE WEECKAGE AND SALVAGE OF 



The voice of the Lord calleth unto the city." — Mic. vi. 9. 
T^HE interest of history clusters about great 



cities. The history of the ancient world 
is the history of Nineveh and Babylon and 
Jerusalem, of Rome and Athens and Alexandria. 
The modern European world has its destinies 
dictated by London, Paris, Berlin, and St. 
Petersburg. Our own country is no exception ; 
the history of the American people gathers 
about the Puritans of Boston, the Knicker- 
bockers of New York, the Creoles of New 
Orleans, the Quakers of Philadelphia, and the 
Argonauts of San Francisco. There is some- 
thing in the hurrying life of the city that fasci- 
nates and holds the multitudes of men and 
women. There is in the modern city not only 



MODERN CITIES 




WRECKAGE AND SALVAGE 151 

much of salvage, but many saving characteris- 
tics. The strongest and noblest intellectual 
fibre in men and women is developed in cities. 
Emerson said: "A scholar is a candle which 
the love and desire of all men will light." The 
human mind needs the stimulus of fellowship 
with many kindred minds to make luxuriant 
growths. The brain receives its brightest pol 
ish where gold and silver lose theirs. The 
broadest and tenderest charity is developed in 
cities. Mr. Howells, in his novel, " The Minis- 
ter's Charge," makes Lemuel Barker say : " If 
any one happens to find out that you are in 
trouble, there's ten times as much done for you 
in the city as in the country ; " and when Evans, 
the shrewd Boston editor, replied, "Perhaps 
that is because there are ten times as many to 
do it ; " Lemuel replied, " No, it isn't that alto- 
gether. It's because they have seen ten times 
as much trouble, and know how to take hold of 
it better." Sympathy is not only developed, 
but made wise and skilful, by contact with the 
wants and sorrows of humanity. 

The most active, self-denying piety is devel- 
oped in the cities. The same general law that 
produces the brightest merchants, the most skil- 
ful mechanics, in the city, develops also the 
most active and diligent Christian. They ship 
splendid pieces of timber from the Puget Sound 



152 



THE people's CHRIST 



forests to all the ship-building ports of the 
globe, to be used as masts on the great ocean- 
carrying vessels. Where do they get those long 
straight pieces, one hundred and fifty feet with- 
out a knot, or a twist, or a flaw of any kind, 
straight as an arrow, and faultless as a chiselled 
statue? Surely not on some skirmish line of 
straggling trees, standing lonesomely to face the 
storms of winter. No, indeed; they go back 
into the depths of the woods, where thousands 
of trees grow as regularly side by side as ever a 
regiment of trained soldiers stood shoulder to 
shoulder on dress parade. So the heart and 
soul of every great reformation has had its birth 
in the great cities. 

But the city has its wreckers and its wreck- 
age as well. First and foremost as the chief 
wrecker in our modern cities, any honest observ- 
er is compelled to put the saloon. It is not 
only the drunkenness it causes, not only the 
army of criminals and paupers and idiots that 
follows in its wake ; but the city dram-shop has 
a moral poison for the whole community about 
it. Every profane and vulgar and irreverent 
impulse is fed and fattened in its stenchful 
atmosphere. It is the headquarters of all the 
festering elements of political corruption and 
municipal misrule. It is the recruiting station 
of pauperism. I have followed men in five dif- 



WEECKAGE AND SALVAGE 153 



ferent cities, to whom I gave small sums of 
money to get something to eat, in answer to 
their plea of hunger, and in every instance I 
traced them directly to the saloon and saw them 
squander it in strong drink. Then there is the 
wreckage of lust. The White Cross societies 
have come none too soon. God speed the White 
Cross and its heroic band of workers, and give 
them a lasting influence on the minds of the 
youth of the country ! But in the meantime 
there is need for an awakened public conscience, 
that will demand that the abominable traffic in 
the virtue of young girls be stopped. The 
injustice and oppression in wages which young 
women suffer has much to do with the wreckage 
of lust. An examination of two thousand cases 
of women who had fallen into a bad life, revealed 
the fact that only five per cent had received as 
much as 18 per week. Twenty-seven only 
received $6 per week. One hundred and 
twenty-six received |4 per week ; 230, 83 per 
week; 336, |2 per week; and 534 had fougiit 
the losing battle on $1 per week. In the inves- 
tigation made by the Central Labor Bureau of 
Boston, relating to the employment of children 
and girls, some startling facts were developed, 
showing how young girls are pushed with a 
strong hand toward lives of infamy. Instances 
were cited of firms that paid $50,000 a year for 



154 



THE people's CHRIST 



advertising, and only $2 per week for girls who 
came to them from the high school. 

Then there is in our American cities the drift 
wreckage from foreign shores. Here in our own 
Boston, not a single house only, or a single 
block, but whole streets and sections of the 
city, — once, from end to end, the abode of the 
most industrious, the most intelligent, and whole- 
some of American citizenship, — have been in- 
gulfed and swallowed up in the drift wreckage 
from the worst elements of Old-World cities. 
As yet we have done next to nothing in attack- 
ing with our Protestant gospel these Old-World 
settlements in our modern cities. Often we 
stand before them ready to say : " Can these 
dry bones live ? " But the voice of God comes 
to us, saying : ^ Though ye have lain among the 
pots, yet ye shall be as the wings of a dove 
covered with silver, and her feathers with yel- 
low gold." 

This wreckage shall become salvage when the 
American churches, with faith and self-denial, 
give themselves up to the work of seeking out 
and saving the lost. A dignified, aristocratic 
church will never save this world. But a sym- 
pathetic, loving, self-denying church, that is 
willing to go into the depths as Christ did, can 
save it. 



Christ's sympathy for cities 155 



II 



CHEIST'S SYMPATHY FOE CITIES 



"And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and 
wept over it." — Luke xix. 41. 



ESUS introduced into the world a new esti- 



^ mate of the value of humanity, and neces- 
sarily assumed with it a new attitude toward 
humanity itself. The man who, for a pretence, 
made long prayers, the selfish lawyers, who 
bound heavy burdens on the populace, had only 
contempt for the masses of the city. Jesus, 
who came to help, to lift burdens from weary 
shoulders, was full of respect and sympathy for 
the humblest soul. These two standards — that 
of the selfish worldling, or his near kinsman, 
the aristocratic Pharisee, and that of Jesus — 
stand ever against each other in eternal antag- 
onism. Illustrations are not lacking. The 
afternoon of the last session of the Board of 
Trade of Chicago for September, 1888, revealed 
a unique and suggestive contrast. It Avas the 
afternoon when the wheat broker known as 
" Old Hutch " clasped his withered hands 




156 



THE people's CHRIST 



tightly around the necks of hundi-eds of mined 
men, and sent them despairing and desperate 
to their sorrowing homes, — all this that he 
might add another superfluous million to the 
millions whose very income he is unable to use. 
A brighter picture, however, was presented at 
the door of the Board of Trade that afternoon. 
A negro boy, who makes his living blacking 
boots for the brokers, brought the result of his 
week's work, in dimes and nickels and coppers, 
and with beaming face laid the little heap down 
upon the table of the chief officer of the city as 
his contribution to the yellow-fever sufferers of 
Jacksonville, Florida. There in the black-faced 
boot-black you have the Christ attitude toward 
humanity, while in the other instance you have 
the incarnation of worldly selfishness. When 
the centenary of Stephenson, the engineer, was 
celebrated not long since at Newcastle-on-Tyne, 
there was a great procession ; but a little com- 
pany of workingmen from the village where 
Stephenson was born attracted most attention 
by a simple banner on which was inscribed the 
motto : " He was one of us." The day will 
come when the workingmen of the world will 
carry the white flag of the Cross, and be proud- 
est of all to say of Jesus, their noblest friend, 
" He was one of us." 

The attitude of the modern church toward the 



Christ's sympathy for cities 157 

city of to-day ought to be the same as that of 
Jesus to the city of old. Christ wept over the 
sorrows and wants of the city. He did not 
contemplate the struggling masses of men and 
women with long homilies on the survival of 
the fittest, or exhortations on social statistics. 
Jesus had a heart. When he looked down on 
the seething masses of suffering, sinning men 
and women, he wept over them. He could not 
restrain himself. He broke down in sobs and 
tears. Some people imagine it a sign of weak- 
ness to be so moved by the world's trouble as 
to cry over it. May we have more of the 
heavenly weakness ! It is the weakness of great 
souls. Narrow, indifferent, selfish souls can 
survey the agony of wrecked and desolate lives, 
and go calmly on their way. But hearts made 
tender by the spirit of Jesus will often contem- 
plate the city with broken hearts and wet eyes. 

The modern church needs to get near to 
people, as Jesus did. The churches of this city 
have a great responsibility on their hands in 
caring for the tens of thousands of young men 
and women who come to Boston from the towns 
and villages and farms of all these New England 
States. 

We must hunt out these boys and girls who 
have wandered from Christian homes, and are 
being overcome and destroyed by the wicked- 



158 



THE people's CHRIST 



ness of the city, — who are feeding their home- 
sick souls on the gilded but poisoned vices of 
the world; we must hold out to them the old 
Bible and the old faith with winning sympathy, 
and say : " Here is the bread of life that fed 
your mother, a loaf from the dear old oven of 
your childhood." 



IN DAKKEST ENGLAND 159 



III 

IN DARKEST ENGLAND AND THE WAY 
OUT, WITH BOSTON APPLICATIONS 

"A land of darkness, as darkness itself, and of the 
shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is 
darkness." — Job x. 22. 

THE text of General Booth's sermon given to 
us in this helpful book, is the great Congo 
forest in the heart of Africa, where Stanley left 
so many of his disheartened followers. In the 
unique sermon of the Salvationist general, the 
dark forest stands for the slum region of the great 
cities. The indomitable Stanley represents the 
moral leaders, the Christian w^orkers, who dare 
to go down in the darkness to rescue the 
lost. Emin, doubtful, vacillating, not knowing 
whether he wants to be rescued or not, stands 
for the poor victims of this dark wilderness. 
General Booth not only plans and pleads for 
help for the semi-respectable, who are largely 
able to take care of themselves, but bravely 
says, " No one will make even a visible dint on 
the morass of squalor, who does not deal with 



160 



THE people's CHRIST 



the improvident, the lazy, the vicious, and the 
criminal." The terrible fact needs to be empha- 
sized, that we in Boston, in several sections of 
the city, are deliberately breeding a vicious class 
that bids fair to be equal in degradation to any- 
thing London can show to-day. During the 
past week, within five minutes' walk of the pul- 
pit where I now stand, I have visited more than 
one " chamber of horrors." Block after block, 
on certain streets, is given up to vileness of 
every description. Many of these old rookeries 
are not fit for any one to live in. They are 
nest-holes of vermin and disease. Children are 
growing up in these places, who have not been 
born into the world so much as " damned into 
the world." I went into miserable holes, mis- 
called homes, where on the coldest day of last 
week the windows were broken, no fire, no coal, 
nothing to eat, little children shivering in rags, 
and the mother drunk. In these places the 
beds are often only a pile of worn straw and 
rags on the floor, covered with a ragged, filthy, 
vermin-inhabited comforter. One wonders if it 
is possible that the Board of Health ever visits 
these places. Since an improper play was 
driven from the stage of a Boston theatre, be- 
cause of the personal investigation of the ofii- 
cers granting the license, I have had some 
hope that if the city ofiicials could be stirred 



IN DAEKEST ENGLAND 



161 



up to personally investigating these foul regions, 
something might be done toward cleansing 
them. Yet, in the midst of this horrible section, 
there is a cluster of four saloons that manage to 
filch enough out of these people to pay annually 
six thousand dollars in license money. In one 
large family, crowded into three little rooms, 
where there are three of the family who work, 
the mother admitted to the officer that they 
spent twelve dollars a week for ale and beer, 
which is nearly ten times as much as they pay 
for rent. The children growing up in these 
places do not go to school. There are young 
men and women who have grown up there who 
are unable to read or write. They are accus- 
tomed, from their infancy, to every form of vice 
and crime. They talk about "going down to 
the Island," as nonchalantly as decent people 
do about going to the post-office. 

These slums are a disgrace to Boston. They 
are not necessary. They ought to be cleansed 
out of existence. The children in every one of 
these families, accustomed to figure in the police 
court, ought to be taken at once out of these 
haunts of darkness. Shall we not have, with 
all our organizations, a new one, or, rather, a 
sort of federation of all the others, that shall 
have for its one object the utter annihilation of 
the slums ? 



162 



THE people's CHRIST 



IV 



THE MISSION OF THE INKHOEN 

"Behold, six men came, . . . and every man a slaughter 
weapon ; and one man among them was clothed with linen, 
with a writer's inkhorn by his side." — Ezek. ix. 2. 

n~^HERE were six men on this mission of 
judgment to a great city. Each man car- 
ried a slaughter weapon. What particular kind 
of weapons the other five had, we do not know ; 
but this reporter who was clothed in linen, and 
carried an inkhorn at his side, we cannot doubt 
that his weapon was his pen. That the pen is a 
slaughter weapon, all history is full of proof. 
Louis Philippe of France was stabbed to death 
by the pens of his time. And that other Louis, 
whom Victor Hugo made the laughing-stock of 
the world as Napoleon the Little, shared a simi- 
lar fate. Although Hugo was an exile without 
a refuge, a tramp without a passport, he was 
more than a match for the emperor on his 
throne. By the aid of his pen alone, he avenged 
the imprisoned and assassinated cause of human 
liberty. He dragged the usurper, emperor 



THE MISSION OF THE INKHOEN 168 

though he was, to the bar of public judgment, 
and there scourged him into contemptible insig- 
nificance for his crime against the chartered 
rights of the French people. The pens of 
William Lloyd Garrison and Harriet Beecher 
Stowe did more than battalions of bayonets to 
cut the throat of the slave power in America. 
They, indeed, made the battalions possible. It 
was the keen pen of a New York journalist 
that pierced the Tweed ring of New York City 
to the heart, and let in the light of day upon 
that writhing nest of political thieves. Alas ! 
that all the slaughter of the pen is not of this 
kind. What an unrivalled blessing the pen and 
the press would be to mankind if their keen- 
edged blade was raised in menace only against 
tyranny and wrong, and ever in defence of 
liberty and truth ! 

The pen has never been so great a power in 
the history of the race as now. The streams 
that flow from it in newspapers, magazines, and 
books, are soon to water the entire heart of man 
with their influence, good or bad. No cause 
can afford to be indifferent in regard to the 
position of the public prints. First and fore- 
most to-day the influence of the pen is felt in 
the daily newspapers. Dr. Muiiger has said : " If 
Ave were to send to the next planetary neighbor 
our most representative thing, I think it would 



164" 



THE people's CHRIST 



be a book." But, for our age, it seems to me 
that the daily newspaper is still more repre- 
sentative. It represents the push, the nervous, 
restless, inventive activity of our time. Some 
one has said that men resort more and more to 
the sea, in search of all that is costly and desir- 
able. In like manner do we depend more and 
more upon the newspaper for inexhaustible 
riches. The salt sea and the newspaper sea 
have both been so thoroughly utilized that they 
now diffuse their benign influence over the 
whole earth. And yet, we are all conscious 
that in many respects the influence of much of 
the daily press is not benign. I know that it is 
easy to retort that editors know more about 
newspaper making than clergymen, but the 
editors often give us advice about sermon mak- 
ing and the conduct of our church life. I do 
not see why we may not be mutually helpful. 

A great newspaper is an affair of too much 
moment to be regarded as simply a scheme for 
private money-making. It is like a great river, 
which no man or corporation may buy or own ; 
it is a highway for all the people, and on its 
bosom floats the commerce of a nation. So a 
great newspaper must be regarded as something 
broader than the man who owns it, or the indi- 
viduals who edit it. The people who have the 
purity of society on their hearts have a right to 



THE MISSION OF THE INKHORN 165 

expect that the momentous power of the daily 
press shall be exercised with reference to its 
influence on the morals of the community. We 
have a right to demand that our daily banquet 
for the intellectual entertainment and develop- 
ment of old and young in our homes, shall be 
something better than great barbecues of crime, 
even though they be served with every attrac- 
tion of art. All honor to those noble men, who, 
resisting all the tremendous temptations to 
competition in this class of journalism, keep 
their pages pure and wholesome, put vice in the 
background, and the great interests of human 
life and government to the front. 

One of the most dangerous features of modern 
city literature is the sensational novel of the 
lower class, which is so carefully worded as to 
be protected by law, yet carries blood-poison 
in every line. I am credibly informed that we 
have in our midst large publishing houses who 
hire the shrewdest legal ability, to whom is 
submitted the copy of these vile stories ; and 
they are made just as unclean as possible and yet 
escape the pillory of the law. These publica- 
tions flood the news-stands, and are pushed 
under the doors of our homes. I have seen 
men loaded down with mule-loads of this vile 
stuff, illustrated with vicious pictures, standing 
at the doors of the public-school buildings, dis- 



166 



THE PEOPLE S CHRIST 



tributing it to the boys and girls as tliey swarm 
out on their way home. Will our law-makers 
never learn wisdom? This blood-poisoning of 
children cannot go on without producing terri- 
ble results. Herod's murder of the innocents 
has its parallel in our own great cities at this 
very hour. While it is our duty to use every 
possible effort to have our present laws amended 
for the protection of the young, I would impress 
it upon parents that the great relief and anti- 
dote is good literature in the home. The man 
who has plenty of beefsteak and potatoes in his 
own dining-room is not likely to go nosing 
among the garbage tubs of his neighbors. Let 
the home abound in bright, fresh literature, that 
shall give a high tone and taste to the minds of 
our youth. 



THE VICTORY AND PROMISE 



167 



V 



THE VICTORY AND PROMISE OF 
AMERICAN PATRIOTISM 



" If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget 
her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue 
cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I prefer not Jerusalem 
above my chief joy." — Ps. cxxxvii. 5, 6. 

TTTE come this morning to pay our annual 



' ' tribute of praise and gratitude to the 
hundreds of thousands of men who, in the hour 
of the nation's peril, gave their lives for its 
unity and its life. The monarchists of the Old 
World sneered that America was a nation of 
traders ; that with the exception of the chivalry 
of the Southern plantations, her men had no 
soul above a cashier's desk or a dry-goods coun- 
ter. Then suddenly the sneer is interrupted 
with the angry boom of a cannon aimed at 
the national flag ; and lo ! these traders and 
traffickers marched an army under the assaulted 
flag, such as the world had never beheld before. 
A navy springs into existence, such as up to 
that time the oceans had never carried. 



(Decoration Day, 1890.) 




168 



THE people's CHRIST 



But we would do less than our duty to-day if 
we did not remember that days of peace have their 
demands for a patriotism as unselfish and heroic 
as times of war. We are facing problems to- 
day that will test to the last extremity the sin- 
cerity of our loyalty to our country and its 
institutions. Here is what we call the " South- 
ern problem." When the end of the war came, 
the country admitted the negro into the brother- 
hood of American citizenship, and pledged him 
an equal chance under the law ; that pledge has 
never been made good. But we have Northern 
problems as well. When it is possible for a coal 
trust to cause settlers on the Western prairies 
to freeze to death for fuel, or a flour trust to im- 
poverish the Eastern poor, we may be sure there 
is room for the keen eyes of patriotism to search 
into the problems of our financial and social 
life. The problem of city misrule, mixed up 
as it is with the unrestricted dumping of 
European sewage into our great cities, which 
speedily develops into political power, lays a 
great weight of obligation upon our patriotism. 
The presence of this Ladies' Relief Corps to- 
day suggests the tremendous debt the Govern- 
ment owes to the loyal women of the nation, 
who, in home and manufactory and hospital, 
made victory possible. These American women 
deserve the ballot, and the Government cannot 



THE VICTORY AND PROMISE 169 

afford to go without this splendid reserve force 
of moral power. 

I have faith in the future of our country. I 
believe the patriotism of the twentieth century 
will be the grandest type the world has seen. 



I 

170 THE people's CHRIST 



VI 

THE EXTRAVAGANCE AND BRUTALITY 

OF MODERN SPORTS 

"A merry heart doeth good like a medicine."— Prou. 
xvi. 22. 

" Do thyself no harm." — Acts xvi. 28. 

npAUL, who was the author of the second 
scripture, was, at the tune of its utterance, 
a very happy illustration of the first proverb, 
showing the value of a cheerful heart in the 
most trying experiences. 

The man who could have " a good time " in 
spite of the midnight dungeon and binding fet- 
ters, carried something about with him that was 
worth having. The Bible does not set itself 
against amusement, or innocent, helpful sport. 
Men and women need and must have some kind 
of recreation. We carry in ourselves, by the 
very charter of our creation, the right to pleas- 
ure from many sources. We are as certainly 
equipped for enjoyment as for labor. The 
human body is constructed like some delicate 
musical instrument which may be pitched to a 



MODERN SPORTS 



171 



thousand joyous tunes. The eye, the ear, the 
mouth, indeed every organ and sense, are so 
many windows through which we may enjoy 
the beauties of the world. Christianity does 
not undertake to quench this desire for recrea- 
tion, but to control and direct it into safe and 
healthful channels. 

But from the Puritan extreme, which would 
suppress all amusements, we are threatened with 
anarchy in the world of recreation, which, in- 
stead of recreating, would destroy both body 
and soul. The tendency to brutality in the 
public popular sports of the last few years can- 
not but be a serious reflection to any thoughtful 
mind. The decline of Roman greatness, the 
precursor of her disintegration and ruin, was 
signalized by bloody and cruel games. Rever- 
ence for life is one of the surest indications of 
civilization. Sensitiveness to the feeling or suf- 
ferings of another is the highest type of human 
life. But we have whole circles of society to 
whom the prize-ring represents the highest ideal 
of human enjoyment. The newspapers have 
columns every day served up for their delecta- 
tion. I hold in my hand clippings of the past 
week or so in different parts of the country giv- 
ing accounts of men who beat each other into 
painful wounds, in some cases into insensibility, 
for the sport — the so-called recreation — of 



172 



THE people's CHRIST 



other men. One of the saddest of facts is that 
the enjoyment of this brutal amusement is not 
confined to the ignorant and vicious classes 
only, but these brutal human mills are attended 
by many men who are supposed to be creditable 
members of society. When the big brute 
Sullivan went over to England, the Prince of 
Wales did him the honor to call upon him and 
pay him the courtesy of a private audience. 
The most honored educator in America would 
not have been so favored by the heir of Eng- 
land's throne. What a window this is into the 
heart of society, showing how much of brutality, 
fierce and wolfish, is still shut under the hatches 
of moral and legal restraint! The Pall Mall 
Gazette says the police can put down prize-fight- 
ing, but the prize-fighting cult, the worship of 
the man with a sixteen-inch biceps as the ideal 
man, remains as strong as ever. It is against 
that spirit of brutality that all good men and 
women must set themselves. One of the most 
significant illustrations of this brutal tendency 
may be seen in the college and popular games 
of the time. I hold in my hands the clippings 
of two weeks that show, in the record of ball 
games alone, one boy fatally shot, one youth 
whose neck was broken, one nose broken, and 
scores of broken fingers, scalp wounds, and 
blackened eyes. 



MODEEN SPOETS 



173 



The recent outrage committed by some of the 
students of Harvard College is an illustration 
of this spirit; and the remark of one of the 
young men at the mass meeting of students hit 
the mark exactly, — that if the public senti- 
ment in the college had not been very low, such 
an outrage would have been impossible." 

As this tendency to brutality in sports in- 
creases, extravagance increases as well. A suc- 
cessful base-ball pitcher commands a salary as 
large, or nearly so, as the Governor of the com- 
monwealth, and through the summer season 
receives more attention from the public press. 
The national game is becoming in many respects 
a great gambling hell, where pools are sold as at 
a horse-race. Yachting has become one of the 
common sports in which large amounts of money 
are spent. 

Now, I do not speak as the enemy of out- 
door amusements. I speak only in warning 
against that extravagance which means harm, 
and in many cases overthrow. The great pur- 
pose of life, after all, is not merely to " have a 
good time," but to build up a noble character 
and to honestly serve one's age. The danger 
to young people especially is that they will get 
an extravagant idea of the importance of what 
is, after all, only incidental to the serious and 
important mission of humanity. 



174 



THE people's CHETST 



VII 



THE CAUSES OF SUICIDE 



"And when Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not fol- 
lowed, he saddled his ass and arose and got him home to his 
house, to his city, and put his household in order, and hanged 
himself." — 2 Sam. xvii. 23. 

n^HE question of suicide is becoming a very 



important one, since nearly seven thousand 
persons have committed self-murder in this 
country alone during the past year. There has 
been a commonly accepted opinion in this coun- 
try, that our American spirit of restlessness is 
responsible for this increase in the frequency of 
suicide, but the facts do not bear out this posi- 
tion. The most recent figures carefully ascer- 
tained by responsible scientists prove that 
self-destruction is increasing as rapidly in other 
civilized countries, whose citizens have never 
been accused of overwork, as in America. 
The cause lies deeper, in the estimate that is put 
upon human life. A materialistic, sensual age 
would naturally be specially open to this temp- 
tation. Who has not noticed the utter reckless- 




THE CAUSES OF SUICIDE 175 



ness of life shown by many Anarchists and 
Nihilists ? It is a desperation that springs not 
only from their sense of wrong, but its chief 
bitterness lies in their lack of faith in the im- 
mortality of man or the justice of God. The 
heathen Yang Choo comforts his disciples with 
this : " All are born, and all die. The virtuous 
and the sage die ; the ruffian and the fool also 
die. Alive they were Yaon and Shun, the most 
virtuous of men ; dead, they are so much rotten 
bone. Or, alive they were Glee and Ghow, the 
most wicked of men ; dead, they are so much 
rotten bone." Spread that belief generally 
among mankind, and you will multiply all 
crimes against the person, and suicide as rapidly 
as any. 

Another cause of suicide in our time is the 
fierce competition for wealth and position ; the 
false conviction that places specially conspicu- 
ous are places of great happiness ; a thirst for 
display, leading men and women to live beyond 
their means, that they may seem to their fellows 
to have more wealth than they really possess. 
After the waste comes bankruptcy, sometimes 
in money only, often in both money and reputa- 
tion, and the character having been already 
squandered, there remains the halter of Ahitho- 
phel, or the pistol of the defaulter. Tlie slavery 
of vice and the remorseful sting of sin often 



176 



THE people's CHRIST 



cause suicide. The wine-cup and the gambling- 
hell help largely to swell the list of suicides. 
There is no remedy for the increase of suicide 
except the development of a pure faith and life 
among men and women. Prove to a man that 
life is a divine gift given for noble ends, and 
develop in him a love of pure things, and he 
would as soon take the life of an angel as the life 
of a man. Degrade a man in faith and life until 
he seems to himself only an animal that eats and 
drinks and dies, and he will slay a man with as 
little compunction as he would take the life of 
a sheep. 



THE AGE OF THE LIAR 



177 



VIII 



THE AGE OF THE LIAE 



"Wherefore, putting away lying, speak every man truth 
with his neighbor, for we are members one of another." — 
Eph. IV. 25. 



IHE importance of truthfulness is indicated 



in the last sentence of the text. Truth 
is the bond that holds the world together. Men 
sail their ships, plant their crops, in fact, expend 
money and exertion in every possible depart- 
ment of life, because they have faith in the 
truthfulness of God. 

Truth is the bond that holds society together. 
Business could not be carried on unless men 
had faith that contracts would be carried out. 
Any tendency in the age that indicates a 
decadence in truthfulness is therefore of seri- 
ous importance. 

The materialistic tendency of our time, the 
rapid building up of fortunes, the fast growth 
of population, and the sudden springing up of 
mighty cities, — all these tend to give men an 
exaggerated idea of the worth of material 
things, so that expediency often takes the 




178 



THE people's CHRIST 



place of truthfulness, and the miserable lying 
proverb, " The end justifies the means," becomes 
very popular in many circles. 

We see this tendency to dissimulation, pre- 
tence, and exaggeration, in business circles. We 
have numerous large business houses in the city 
who for years have been advertising that they 
sell goods below cost. These firms make enor- 
mous fortunes by selling goods for less than 
they pay for them ! Now, then, these men 
would be grossly insulted if you said, " You lie, 
gentlemen ; " and yet there is, to say the least, a 
great carelessness about the truth of such state- 
ments. 

The same tendency to the lack of sincerity 
may be seen in religious matters. In religion 
we call it "cant." In religion it should cer- 
tainly be expected we should have perfect 
sincerity; and yet there, as well as in the 
counting-room and parlor, is a great tempta- 
tion to follow the fashionable rut. 

Young men and young women can do nothing 
better for themselves, even for this world alone, 
than to cultivate sincere, true characters. 

It is only pure gold that stands testing by 
time ; and truthfulness is not only the cement 
that binds society together, but it is the mag- 
netism that holds the individual character 
in permanence. 



AMERICAN AND FOREIGN SABBATH 179 



IX 

THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE AMEEI- 
CAN AND FOREIGN SABBATH 

" Can two walk together except they be agreed? " — Amos 
iii. 3. 

nj^HIS country is at present the theatre of a 
mighty struggle which is going on between 
two antagonistic ideas concerning the Sabbath. 
It is easy to find fault with our Puritan fore- 
fathers, and point out extravagances in the 
severity with which they enforced their ideas of 
Sabbath-keeping, but it is not so easy to parallel 
the race of noble men and women their system 
produced. The Puritan Sabbath, softened by a 
tenderer theology, gives what I call the Ameri- 
can Sabbath — a day of mingled rest and wor- 
ship. The flood of immigration from the Old 
World has brought with it the Continental Sab- 
bath, a gala day — at the best, a single service 
in the morning, and a beer-garden in the after- 
noon; at the worst, a day of carousal for the 
rich, and unresting toil for the poor. The 
workingmen of this country are the last people 



180 



THE people's CHEIST 



who should favor Sabbath desecration ; for the 
experience of history is that a Sunday of 
carousal and pleasure, in the course of a genera- 
tion or two, becomes a Sunday of toil for work- 
ing people. The American Sabbath, with its 
reverential spirit, its opportunities for rest and 
for religious teaching, cannot be lost out of our 
society without great harm and loss. The 
argument that Sunday excursions and pleasure 
jaunts are necessary for the health of the poor 
and overworked is largely sophistical. A wide 
experience among the poor people of cities 
leads me to say most positively that the healthi- 
est people among them, man for man and family 
for family, are the earnest Christians who spend 
their Sundays in church-going. Such people on 
their Sabbaths get a breath of new thought and 
spiritual exaltation which is worth more physi- 
cally to their tired nerves than even the breath 
of the sea or the fragrance of the forest. 



NO MISSION TO GHOSTS 181 



X 

NO MISSION TO GHOSTS 

[Boston Herald Eeport.] 

THOSE wlio attended the morning service at 
St. John's M. E. Church, Broadway, South 
Boston, yesterday, to listen to a sermon by the 
pastor. Rev. Louis Albert Banks, on Hagar's 
Well of Water," were also treated to a dis- 
course on a timely topic which was not down on 
the programme. As the pastor rose to deliver 
his sermon, he said that before taking up the 
theme of the morning he desired to read a letter 
which he had received through the mail, criti- 
cising his remarks in behalf of the striking 
carpenters the previous Sunday evening. The 
letter is as follows : — 

Mr. Banks, — What consummate fools you preaclaers do 
make of yourselves in speaking of the labor question as you 
do. I speak as a man of God and a conscientious employer 
of men, who are happy while working for me ten hours a 
day. I charge it upon you, and all such as you — it is such 
sedition that you are creating, that the apostle denounces. 
Moreover, coming from such novices, leads me to warn you 



182 



THE people's CHRIST 



to know more and say less. Your mission, if genuine, is to 
save souls. Exclusive, sacred, grand work. I say to you, 
sir, attend to it. Kespectfully, 

W. T. Faunce. 

Boston, June 30, 1890. 

Mr. Banks said he did not read the letter 
because he was in any way offended at this gen- 
tleman for his frank statement of opinion, but 
because it illustrated a certain erroneous senti- 
ment concerning the proper range of pulpit 
discussion. The phrase "to save souls," has 
been made to cover a multitude of selfish sins. 
" When I was in Seattle in the days of the anti- 
Chinese riots, and denounced the murders of 
the Chinamen from my pulpit, I was piously 
advised to devote myself 'to saving souls.' 
When in Boise City, Idaho, I denounced the 
growing disposition to cringe to the Mormon 
sentiment there, some of the time-serving politi- 
cal newspapers severely reminded me it was my 
business to ' save souls.' And now in Boston, 
when I denounce the cruel combinations of capi- 
tal which defeat honest and free competitions in 
the labor world, and defend the laborer's right 
to share in the advantages that have accrued 
from the inventions of our day, I am not aston- 
ished to hear the old tune, ' It is your business 
to save souls.' 

" I want it distinctly understood that this pul- 



NO MISSION TO GHOSTS 183 



pit has no mission to disembodied souls. My 
mission is to preach the gospel of justice and 
righteousness to men and women who are still 
in the flesh. A great many men who are made 
uncomfortable by the conscience-searching truth- 
fulness of the pulpit, would be very glad to turn 
the ministry aside to dealing with ghosts. If 
the gospel of the Carpenter of Nazareth has no 
mission to the carpenters of Boston in their 
struggle for a just and equitable adjustment of 
the conditions of their daily toil, then it has no 
mission at all.'' 

(The foregoing " Sermon Fragments " are gathered from 
the Monday morning reports of the Boston daily papers.) 



MISCELLANEOUS 



I 



HINDEEANCES TO EEVIVALS 
SHALL use the term " revivals "in the popu- 



lar sense, — a time of special and extraordi- 
nary concentration of the minds of the com- 
munity, both in and out of the church, upon 
spiritual concerns ; a time when the whole, or a 
larger portion, of the church is aroused to the 
importance of conscious spiritual life, and 
becomes especially zealous for the conversion of 
others. 

Revivals are, in my judgment, absolutely 
necessary to the highest and noblest success of 
the Christian Church. The late Dr. Holland 
made a statement in Seribner's Magazine, in 
June, 1877, which has been copied into the 
Encyclopedic Dictionary as a part of the defi- 
nition of revivals. He says: "Revivals have 
become necessary to the advance of Christian- 
ity, simply because of the incompetency of the 




HINDER ANCES TO REVIVALS 185 



ordinary preaching; and the moment the revi- 
vals come, the preaching changes, or it changes 
before they come." I am perfectly in har- 
mony with the criticism on the " incompetency ' ' 
of much of our preaching to produce revivals. 
But I do not agree with the sentiment ex- 
pressed that revivals are unnecessary in a church 
which has, in the highest and best sense, " com- 
petent" preaching. 

I am aware of the popular theory abroad that 
the ideal church is one that enjoys perpetually 
the revival spirit ; where souls shall frequently 
be converted at the regular public services. I 
believe in that as far as it goes, with all my 
heart. I believe that such a condition of church 
life, though at present rarely realized, is, never- 
theless, possible and practicable. The Neiv 
York Herald said editorially, a few weeks ago, 
that " where there was a pulpit on fire, there 
would be a crowd of people to see it burn." 
And if the pulpit is flaming with holy fire, the 
church will ignite, and week by week some un- 
lighted spiritual natures will be melted down 
and reclaimed. But such a condition only 
makes frequent revivals the more imperative, in 
accordance with tlie universal law which en- 
larges responsibility with every added resource 
or widened opportunity. About such a burning 
pulpit and glowing church there will be at- 



186 



THE people's CHEIST 



tracted scores, and many times hundreds, of 
men and women who are drawn by the Gospel 
warmth and welcome, but who are so chained 
by the icy fetters of passion and association 
that what you melt down in the one or two 
hours on the Sabbath, is congealed again, with 
the added ice of worldliness, in the six interven- 
ing days of the week. But the revival comes, 
and the combined heat of the whole church is 
brought to bear on these cold hearts; the 
melting process is kept up day after day, until 
the thawed and penitent soul exclaims, — 

" I yield, I yield ; 
I can hold out no more ; 
I sink, by dying love compelled, 
And own Thee Conqueror." 

Buffon, by collocating several hundred small 
mirrors, and causing the flame of a galvanic 
battery to play upon their focal centre, melted 
in two minutes the hardest metals, and set fire 
to wood at a distance of two hundred feet. So 
the wise minister who collocates his several 
hundred Christian mirrors, and by faith, and 
prayer, and the preaching of God's Word, brings 
to bear the battery of heaven on their focal 
centre, has a heat that melts the moral icebergs 
of his congregation, that he was otherwise 
powerless to permanently affect. 

Now I desire to speak of two classes of hin- 



HINDERANCES TO REVIVALS 187 

derances or preventives. The first is in the 
ministry. There is a class of ministers who 
believe in revivals, who wish they could have 
revivals in their churches, but who lack the 
faith and courage necessary to make them use 
the methods marked out in the Bible and in 
the experience of the church, and dare every- 
thing in a bold effort to secure a revival. It is 
said that Admiral Dupont was once explaining 
to Admiral Farragut the reasons why he failed 
to enter Charleston Harbor with his fleet of 
ironclads. He gave this and that and the other 
reason. Farragut remained silent till he was 
through, and then said : " Ah, Dupont, there is 
one reason more." "What is that?" "You 
did not believe you could do it." And I am 
convinced that that is the reason why many 
admirable ministers, in many regards successful, 
yet go sadly on their way without revivals. 
Some ministers do not preach with any set pur- 
pose of convicting men of sin, or of drawing 
them to immediate repentance and acceptance 
of Jesus as a personal Saviour. Ministers who 
awaken revivals by their preaching, do so on 
purpose, and they make everything bend to that 
object. They pour the whole flood of their 
physical, mental, and spiritual energy down the 
sluiceway which leads to the one wheel that 
turns the sinf q1 heart in repentance to the Cross. 



188 



THE people's CHEIST 



A young English clergyman, wlio had preached 
a learned and logical, but Christless and there- 
fore powerless, sermon, tried to turn aside the 
searching criticism of a faithful old minister, by 
saying, " Christ was not in the text." The old 
gentleman replied: "Don't you know, young 
man, that from every town, and every village, 
and every little hamlet in England, wherever it 
may be, there is a road to London?" "Yes," 
said the young man. " Ah," said the old minis- 
ter, " and from every text in Scripture there is a 
road to the metropolis of the Scriptures — that 
is Christ. And," said he, " I have not yet found 
a text that hasn't a road to Christ in it. If I 
should, I would make one ; I would go over a 
hedge and a ditch, but I would get at my Mas- 
ter, for the sermon cannot do any good unless 
there is a savor of Christ in it." A revival 
of tender, but straightforward, heart-searching 
presentation of Jesus, as the only salvation of 
sinful men and women, is one of the imperative 
demands of the hour. 

Last year, after a Lake Michigan steamer 
went down in a gale, and over forty lives were 
lost, it came to light that some of the drowned 
would have been saved if it had not been for 
the fact that some of the life-preservers were 
filled with grass instead of cork. That fearful 
cheat was possible because the grass is cheaper 



HINDER ANCES TO REVIVALS 189 

than the cork, and the substitute had secured 
somebody's approvaL The grass "preserver" 
becomes saturated in about an hour, and is then 
a burden to the shipwrecked human being who 
has been deceived into the fearful experiment. 
Miserable a cheat as that was, it is not more 
miserable than the Christless gospels by which 
it is, in some quarters, proposed to float immor- 
tal souls amid the gales of care and sorrow, of 
life and death. Only on the bosom of the cruci- 
fied Redeemer is there a safe refuge. 

Another hinderance, which lies at the founda- 
tion of the whole question, is the frequent lack 
of a democratic spirit in the church. There is, 
in all our churches, a constant tendency toward 
an aristocracy of some kind. It may be money, 
or brains, or social standing, or something else, 
but that tendency has to be contended against 
everywhere. Churches under the domination of 
an aristocratic spirit do not have revivals. The 
reason is not hard to find. Such church aristo- 
crats get practically to have a creed like this : 
" Some souls are very valuable ; the souls con- 
nected with our set most valuable of all. It 
would be a great calamity if the son of Dr. 
Longpurse, or the daughter of Banker Big- 
wallet, or the brother of Professor Goldspec- 
tacles, should go to the bad and be lost, but the 
common crowd are of a different order of being." 



190 



THE people's CHRIST 



Some of these good aristocrats would go a little 
farther, and open their plethoric pocket-books to 
help send an evangelist to preach the Gospel to 
the " common people " in some mission chapel. 
But the idea of using their aristocratic temple, 
with all its elegant appointments, as a battle- 
ground for the souls of the perishing masses, 
never seriously occurs to them. Now, churches 
do not have revivals while the members feel 
that way. The revival spirit is not contagious 
among that class. No vaccination was ever a 
more perfect refuge against smallpox ; they are 
not in danger of even the varioloid. 

Revivals do not come until a church is imbued 
with the conviction that an immortal soul is 
worth more than anything else on earth, and 
that it is as great a calamity in the sight of God 
that the hack-driver's son or the washerwoman's 
daughter should go wrong, as the proudest 
scion of nobility on the foot-stool. Many city 
churches are languishing for just that influx of 
new life that would come with a revival of the 
democratic spirit, which would give the working 
people a welcome, with a warm human sym- 
pathy that would overcome the wide-spread con- 
viction among them that they are not wanted. 

Many churches do not have revivals because 
they have settled down into a sort of religious 
club-life, and are congratulating one another 



HINDERANCES TO REVIVALS 191 



that they are having a comfortable, soothing 
journey from suburban villas to glory. Oh, for 
some flash of heavenly lightning to awaken 
such churches to the fact, as Hugh Price Hughes 
well puts it, that " the mission of the church is 
not to coddle saints, but to collar sinners ! " 

The ^Methodist Times of London tells a good 
story of an aristocratic brother who did not pro- 
pose to be jostled, either physically or spiritually, 
by the common people. A few years ago, a 
most successful Wesleyan missionary was sta- 
tioned at a stately old chapel in the west of 
England. On the first Sunday morning he 
found a poor congregation, and instantly decided 
to mend it. He proposed an out-door service 
before the evening service, and, of course, found 
all the young people ready to follow him. The 
result was, that in the evening the chapel was 
full. On the next Sunday night it was crowded. 
The next day was the quarterly meeting. When 
the business of this meeting was cleared away, 
an elderly and very reverend-looking trustee 
addressed the meeting. He wanted to know 
whether a new minister had power to do as he 
liked in holding out-door services. The old 
man was profoundly^ mpved. He had attended 
that chapel for forty years ; and for the first 
time in his life, on the last Sunday evening, he 
had actually been unable to get into his seat. 



192 



THE people's CHRIST 



The cliapel was positively full of " common 
people ! " 

The new minister, instead of feeling the hor- 
ror of his position, shouted " Glory ! " And he 
went on to remark that the Conference had sent 
him there to fill that chapel, and he meant to do 
it. If the dear and reverend brother who had 
spoken objected to the common people coming 
into the sanctuary, he would better go else- 
where where there were no common people, for 
all the reverend brethren in the world would 
not deter him from trying to save souls. The 
dear old man did go elsewhere, and the people 
were saved. A great revival swept over the 
community, and the hitherto empty and useless 
old chapel became the centre of a mighty reli- 
gious influence. They call that sort of work, 
across the Atlantic, the "forward movement." 
May the free winds carry it over all seas, and 
all our sails fill with the holy energy of the 
" forward movement " I 



THE HEEMIT OF THE SKAGIT 193 



II 



NOWITKAN, THE HERMIT OF THE 



ANY years ago, during the epoch which is 



characterized by a late writer in the Over- 
land Monthly/ as the "days of barbarism on 
Puget Sound," there lived in a rich valley on 
one of the tributaries of the Skagit River a 
noted and wealthy Indian chieftain named 
Nowitkan. He was the richest and most influ- 
ential of his tribe. He was rich in canoes, 
ponies, and cattle, and carried on a flourishing 
trade in wolf and mountain-goat skins. He 
belonged nominally to an Indian reservation, 
which was controlled then, as now, by the Roman 
Catholic Church. 

The priests of this church had been among 
these Indians, and had baptized them all into 
the Roman Catholic communion. They had 
not, however (and, so far as I have been able to 
learn, never have, on the Pacific coast), inter- 
fered with their polygamous customs, the buy- 
ing and selling of wives, or, in fact, with any of 



SKAGIT 




194 



THE people's CHRIST 



the heathen and sinful habits prevalent among 
them. 

Nowitkan was a polygamist, having taken 
wives in proportion as his property had in- 
creased. Soon after his baptism into the Roman 
Catholic Church, he was taken suddenly ill, and 
to all outward appearances died. The Indians 
mourned him as dead ; but after two or three 
days of funeral preparations and ceremonies, he, 
to their great astonishment, came back to life, 
and told them the following remarkable story : 
He declared that, as they had supposed, he had 
really died; that when he went out from the 
body, he came into the presence of the Great 
Spirit and held conversation with him. The 
Great Spirit was angry with him and with his 
people, and told him he had done very wrong in 
taking more than one wife. He was also dis- 
pleased with them for praying to the Virgin 
Mary, as they had been taught to do by the 
priests ; but told him that they ought to pray to 
no one except Jesus, who was the Great Spirit's 
Son, and who would hear them, and forgive 
their sins. The Great Spirit told Nowitkan 
that for these and many other bad acts, he could 
not be permitted to enter into the " Happy 
Hunting Grounds," but must go away into a 
strange and unhappy desert. Then Nowitkan 
pleaded for mercy. He pleaded in his own be- 



THE HERMIT OF THE SKAGIT 195 

half that he had committed these wrong deeds 
through ignorance, and promised that if the 
Great Spirit would permit him to go back to the 
earth for a time, he would put away all his 
wives except one, would quit all his wicked 
ways, and worship only Jesus, God's Son. 

When at last this request was granted, he 
begged that he might be permitted to kee-p his 
youngest and prettiest wife ; but the Great 
Spirit had commanded to keep only the eldest, 
the one he had taken in his youth. To the 
great astonishment, not only of his own people, 
but of the early white settlers as well, Nowit- 
kan proceeded at once to put these instructions 
into practice. He separated from all except his 
first wife ; refused to have anything more to do 
with the Roman priests or their ceremonies ; but 
lived a very serious and prayerful life. Not 
only did he change his own. habits of life, but 
began preaching his new faith to the other 
Indians. He went about gathering them to- 
gether, telling them his experience, denouncing 
their sins, and urging them to worship no one 
but the Lord Jesus Christ. 

He attracted great attention among the 
Indians, and indeed his influence threatened to 
overthrow the entire spiritual control of the 
priesthood among the Indians of the Lower 
Puget Sound. The matter, of course, was 



196 



THE people's CHRIST 



speedily brought to the notice of the agent and 
priest on the adjoining reservation. These 
emissaries of Rome acted with promptitude, and 
in perfect harmony with the late defence of the 
Inquisition made by the wily Monseigneur Capel. 
They gathered all their assistants, marched on 
the home of the unsuspecting heretic, burned 
his canoes, confiscated his ponies, butchered his 
cattle, and carried him away to the jail on the 
reservation. For two long years Nowitkan lay 
in jail. During that time all the arts of perse- 
cution and persuasion were in turn used on this 
self-ordained missionary, to make him recant, 
but in vain. At last, worn out and ready to 
die, he promised, if given his liberty, he would 
leave his tribe and confine his faith to himself; 
on this promise he was finally released, and, tak- 
ing his faithful wife, he went into the wilder- 
ness up near the foot of Mount Baker, and 
there lived the life of a recluse. He made his 
humble livelihood by hunting and fishing ; send- 
ing his wife into the settlements with his pelts, 
not daring himself to risk a meeting with the 
Roman Catholic authorities. 

Here, in this lonely hermitage, he was visited, 
in 1875, by one of our preachers, who is at pres- 
ent a member of the Puget Sound Conference. 
The minister found him very shy and fearful at 
first ; but when he had succeeded in convincing 



THE HERMIT OF THE SKAGIT 197 

him that he was not a Catholic, he opened his 
whole heart to him, and related his history sub- 
stantially as I have given it here. He reiterated 
his faith to his Methodist brother, and assured 
him that during all the years since that won- 
drous vision, he had not ceased to try to please 
the Great Spirit, and continued to pray to Jesus, 
who was, as he termed it, the " Papa's Son.'" 

Whether he still keeps his lonely watch at 
the foot of gray old Mount Baker, or has gone 
to his final reward in the "Happy Hunting 
Grounds," I do not know. I have tried simply 
to give the record without comment, as related 
to me, and fully believed by the early settlers, 
and as consistently maintained through many 
long years by Nowitkan himself, whom I have 
thought worthy of a printed remembrance as 
the Hermit of the Skagit. 

[Published in the Western Christian Advocate, March 18, 
1885.] 



198 



THE people's CHEIST 



III 



METHODISM AMONG THE NOOTSACKS 
T^HE Nootsack Indians live on the eastern 



side of the Lower Puget Sound, far up, 
close to the British line. There are, all told, 
about three hundred men, women, and children. 

In the days of the Hudson Bay Company's 
rule, they were visited by some Roman Catho- 
lic priests, and taken wholesale — dirt, sins, 
heathenism, and all — into the Romish Church. 
No attempt was made to reach their hearts with 
the spiritual cleansing, and the outward routine 
of their heathen life went on much as before. 
So matters stood until a few years ago an intel- 
ligent young Nootsack went over on the Frazer 
River to visit some of his swarthy friends who 
owed allegiance to Great Britain. 

There was among the British Indians a Wes- 
leyan missionary ; and the visit of the young 
Nootsack occurred at the time of their glori- 
ous camp-meeting, with the genuine Methodist 
flavor about it. The power of God fell upon 




METHODISM AMONG THE NOOTSACKS 199 

the people. Christian Indians were happy, 
Indian sinners were under conviction, and re- 
penting Indians were happily converted to God. 
The yonng Romanist from the land of the Noot- 
sacks was full of amazement. He had never 
witnessed anything like this. Soon, however, 
his amazement changed to terror in his own 
behalf ; and there on the Frazer River camp- 
ground, the first Nootsack found the pearl of 
great value. He was now all aflame to carry 
the "good tidings" to his brethren at home. 
Charles Wesley's hymn was realized again up 
in that northern forest, in that Nootsack heart, 
with all the tenderness ever experienced in city 
church or by cultured Caucasian. 

" Jesus all the day long 

Was my joy and my song: 
Oil, that all his salvation might see!" 

He hurried home, gathered some friends to- 
gether, and began to tell them his experience 
and exhort them to repent ; but they laughed at 
him, called him crazy, and left him to preach to 
an empty wigwam. He followed them about 
for some time, doing his best to make them hear, 
but in vain. Finally, he appealed for help to 
the Wesleyan missionary, who, at his solicita- 
tion, visited the Nootsack valley and preached 
to the people. The novelty of hearing a white 
man who could speak in their own language 



200 



THE people's CHEIST 



was sufficient to attract a fair conoTeo-ation of 
curious listeners. 

The missionary preacliecl to them Christ 
and him crucified." Our young convert was 
on the alert, watching each dusky face for favor- 
able indications, and praying for God's help. 
At last he saw the chief man becoming inter- 
ested, and then a softening in the expression of 
another old man of considerable influence : then 
the big tears rolled down their cheeks as they 
listened to the old yet ever-new story. The 
young Indian declares that the happiest experi- 
ence of his life was the sight of those penitential 
tears. Many of them were converted to God at 
that time. 

One hundred and thirty-five of them are 
members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
and they have a Sunday-school numbering, on 
the averao'e, one hundred. Thev belono^ed to 
the Lummi Reservation ; but as that is under 
Roman Catholic control, they have dissolved 
their tribal relations, have taken land in sever- 
alty, and are now receiving United States 
patents for their homes. They are adopting 
the habits and ctistoms of Christian civilization. 
In the summer time, when they go in large 
numbers up the Sound to work for the farmei^ 
during harvest, the most careless employer can 
easily distinguish the Xootsack Indians from 



METHODISM AMONG THE NOOTSACKS 201 

the others. They are noticeable, in the fact 
that they do not lie or steal, and cannot be 
persuaded to work on Sunday, no matter how 
flattering the inducements. They spend the 
harvest Sabbaths in prayer and class-meetings, 
and in singing Methodist hymns. There are, 
among the spiritual descendants of Wesley, 
many richer in intellect and social culture ; but 
I doubt if any are richer in sincere appreciation 
of the redeeming love of Jesus, than these sons 
and daughters of the Nootsack. 

[Published in the Northwestern Christian Advocate, March 
11, 1885.] 



202 



THE people's CHEIST 



IV 

PEESONAL EXPERIENCES IN THE ANTI- 
CHINESE EIOTS 

"TT was my fortune to be the pastor of Battery 
Street Metliodist Episcopal Cliurcli in Seattle, 
Washington, during the anti-Chinese agitation of 
1885 and 1886. As to the causes which led to 
the cruel and outrageous treatment of the 
Chinese, I will quote from an article which 
I furnished Zion's Herald^ at the request of the 
late Dr. Bradford K. Peirce, while I was on the 
ground of the disturbance : — 

" A few months since, when the news came 
of the Wyoming massacre of Chinese miners, 
there had been as yet scarcely a ruffle on the 
quiet waters of Puget Sound concerning the 
now vexed Chinese question. Almost simulta- 
neous with that, perhaps a few days later, there 
appeared on the scene an Irish agitator from 
California, who proceeded to harangue the labor- 
ing people, and to organize them into secret 
lodges. It has been the old story over again, of 



THE ANTI-CHINESE RIOTS 203 



the man who was given a small box in which 
was confined an evil spirit. In answer to its 
pleading, he partially opened the box, and out 
of it sprang a giant which seemed to fill the 
earth. We had turned loose on us one wild 
Irishman, and out of his communistic heart has 
sprung a phantom, whose shadow has darkened 
the whole northwest coast, and whose tread has 
made our young city shake with terror. 

" Ere thirt}^ days passed, four Chinese laborers 
had been cowardly murdered in their beds, and 
a camp outfit worth some thousands of dollars 
burned at midnight, the inmates being driven 
half naked into the woods. Within ninety days 
these so-called hyiights arose en masse at Tacoma, 
and drove two hundred Chinese residents from 
their homes, through the drenching rain, to a 
railway station nine miles distant ; they herded 
them on the open prairie, the storm beating all 
night long on the unprotected crowd, and next 
morning drove them all into the cars of an out- 
going train, except two poor wretches that had 
to be carried, having died from exposure during 
that awful night. 

"Now, then, let us study a moment the ex- 
cuses given for this agitation. One favorite 
rallying cry is that we are being overwhelmed 
by a great multitude of Chinese laborers, in 
opposition to, and defiance of, the restriction 



204 



THE people's CHRIST 



law. But the census statistics do not bear out 
tliis statement. There are only thirty-three 
more Chinamen to-clay, when our population is 
one hundred and thirty thousand, than there 
were five years ago when we had only seventy 
thousand people. If twenty-five white people 
were able to get along peaceably and prosper- 
ously in competition with one Chinaman five 
years ago, there is no reason to believe forty- 
five white citizens are in danger of being over- 
whelmed by the same Celestial at the present 
time. 

" Besides, the cry that the Chinese bring the 
white laboring classes into a degrading com- 
petition with ' cheap labor,' loses its force when 
we are reminded that there is no place in the 
civilized world where laborers receive such 
generous wages, in proportion to the cost of 
living, as they do here. The one great bar to 
the general advancement and prosperity of the 
Pacific Coast section, is that labor is so high 
that it practically prohibits home manufacture. 
The butter on our table was made in an Iowa 
creamery ; the lard used to shorten our pie- 
crust was canned in Chicago ; the cheese we 
eat was pressed in New York ; our shoes, made 
from hides which originall}^ grew on Puget 
Sound cattle, have twice crossed the continent 
before they are ready for our wear; the wool 



THE ANTI-CHINESE RIOTS 205 



sheared from our sheep this season will be 
shipped back next year in ready-made clothing, 
with two freight rates added ; and other things 
innumerable might be mentioned. The greatest 
need we have is the importation of cheap labor, 
backed by capital, to sustain manufactories. 

" Another complaint made against the China- 
men is that they send all their earnings back to 
the Flowery Kingdom. This is, as a rule, true ; 
after their living expenses are taken out, which, 
however, are not a small item. Nothing could 
be farther from the truth than the statement 
often made that the Chinaman drives out the 
white laborer by starving himself. The China- 
man has one peculiar characteristic, — he lives 
according to his income. If he makes only 
fifty cents a day, he lives on vegetable soup 
and boiled rice, keeps out of debt, and steers 
clear of the gout. If he gets a dollar a day, 
he has beef, pork, potatoes, fish, and wheat 
bread. And if you raise his wages to a dollar 
and a half or two dollars, he will eat more 
chickens, turkeys, geese, and fruits, out of his 
wages, than any other class of foreigners the 
writer has yet seen in America. But, suppose 
the Chinese do send their surplus earnings 
home, even that is infinitely preferable to the 
use made of their money by a large class of 
other foreign immigrants. ... I am satisfied 



206 



THE people's CHRIST 



that if the Chinamen resident in Washington 
Territory had been as liberal patrons of the 
liquor traffic as European foreigners, it would 
have been impossible to have aroused the pres- 
ent agitation." 

In the midst of the agitation I preached on 
the subject from my pulpit. The following 
quotation from the concluding paragraphs of 
my discourse, which was stenographically re- 
ported for the daily papers, will give the reader 
some idea of the tension of the public mind : — 

"I myself have received repeated warnings 
that if I did not keep my mouth shut on the 
Chinese question I should not only receive per- 
sonal injury, in fact death, but my church 
should be burned to the ground. Now then, in 
regard to these warnings I have this to say : I 
am sent out to preach a gospel that declares 
that Jesus Christ by the grace of God tasted 
death for every man. I am sent out to preach 
by virtue of a commission which says. Go je 
into all the world, and preach the Gospel. To 
whom? To Englishmen, to Americans? To 
Irishmen, to Germans, to men with white faces 
and short hair ? No. To preach the Gospel to 
every creature ; and may my tongue cleave to 
the roof of my mouth, and my good right arm 
fall palsied to my side, before I utter one word 



THE ANTI-CHINESE RIOTS 207 

or lift one finger to close the door of the cliurcli 
of Jesus Christ upon one single soul for whom 
my Saviour lived, suffered, and died. It is a 
little late in the day to undertake to shut the 
doors of a Methodist Episcopal church because 
of somebody's race prejudice. Good old John 
Wesley said, ' The world is my parish.' The 
Methodist Church was established on that idea. 
Our missionaries have belted the globe, and 
preached and suffered and died, that every 
creature might hear the Gospel. We have 
buried one of our bishops in Syria, another in 
China, another beneath the waves of the Indian 
Ocean ; and their brave successors press forward 
gladly to take their places in sacrifice, in hard- 
ship, or in the grave. When race prejudice was 
bitterest against the black man in the South, the 
Church never lacked volunteers to follow the 
lead of heroic Bishop Gilbert Haven, who wrote 
home in the midst of the struggle : ' The South 
hate me so terribly that they may take my life. 
But be it so. The truth will live and win, 
whether I live or die.' The spirit is not dead. 
When Bishop Taylor asked for half a hundred 
men and women to go into the heart of Africa, 
to go without salary, and to go in the face of 
certain hardship and probable death, the trouble 
was not to find those willing to go, but to deny 
the many who offered. The Church never had 



208 



THE people's CHRIST 



a forlorn hope but what there were a score of 
heroic souls ready to lead it for love of God and 
love of man. So I say it is hardly worth while 
to attempt to shut the doors of a church like 
that, even against the Chinese in the city of 
Seattle, in the j^ear of our Lord 1885. Church 
homes are pleasant, and life is sweet ; but the 
Church can afford, yes, a thousand times better 
afford, to have her temples burned to the earth, 
and her ministers assassinated in the darkness, 
than that either the lips of the one or the doors 
of the other shall be cowardly closed against 
one single soul, that, abused, oppressed, and de- 
fenceless, seeks their sympathy or protection." 

At last the storm that had been brewing for 
months broke upon us. It was a Sunday morn- 
ing, Feb. 7, 1886. In the early dawn the mob 
began driving the Chinamen from their stores 
and dwellings towards the wharf. The gov- 
ernor's message calling upon all good citizens 
to help put down the riot was brought to me in 
the midst of a sermon on "Prohibition." I 
went out of my pulpit about twelve o'clock, 
and, in company with one of my class-leaders, 
proceeded to the court-house, enrolled myself as 
one of the Home Guards, and was given a mus- 
ket. I did not have the privilege of removing 
my clothes and lying down quietly to rest, until 



THE ANTI-CHINESE RIOTS 209 



after the arrival of the United States troops on 
the following Wednesday night. 

On Tuesday evening, when it was rumored 
I had returned home, my house was surrounded 
by an armed mob intending to hang me ; but I 
was on guard at the court-house, and my family 
were at a neighbor's. On the following Sunday 
a number of men, fearing an attempt to assassi- 
nate me at the church (which had been boldly 
threatened), went early and put their rifles 
under their pews. Leading church officials 
patrolled in front of the building, rifle in hand ; 
and I arose that beautiful Sunday morning to 
deliver my sermon, morally sure that in all that 
large audience I was the only man unarmed. 



210 



THE people's CHRIST 



V 

THE LITTLE YELLOW MAN'S CLAIM ON 
THE AMEEICAN CHEISTIAN 

n^HERE are some phases of the cruel agitation 
smouldering throughout the Pacific Coast 
States and Territories, that, however indiffer- 
ently they may be regarded by the man of the 
world, cannot but be of intense interest to the 
sincere Christian. As disciples of Jesus we 
cannot afford to look at this movement from the 
standpoint of the ward politician. Any sensi- 
ble man who has reflected upon the subject, 
knows very well that if a Chinaman had a vote, 
these political demagogues who are to-day cry- 
ing, " Crucify him ! " would be crawling on 
their knees, obsequiously seeking his favor. 
We should have schemes for controlling the 
Chinese vote, as we do to-day for carrying the 
German or Irish vote. 

If a jackass could vote, he would be crowned 
with laurel and fawned upon with blear-eyed 
affection by these contemptible sycophants. 
And yet nothing is more astonishing than the 



THE LITTLE YELLOW MAN's CLAIM 211 

extent to which Christian men and women are 
often influenced by the sophistical appeals of 
politicians. 

For the man whose heart is longing to win 
redeemed souls from heathen darkness to the 
Sun of righteousness, there is in these perse- 
cutions of the Chinese an all-important ques- 
tion. What influence is our treatment of the 
two hundred thousand Chinese in America to 
have upon the efforts being made to Christian- 
ize the four hundred millions of Chinamen just 
across the steam -ferry, in Asia? 

This question was specially impressed upon 
my mind a few weeks ago by reading in a 
Seattle journal the report of a number of inter- 
views with leading Chinese merchants. It is 
most pathetic reading. I cannot understand 
how any true American, whether Christian or 
infidel, can read it without hanging his head 
in shame. One of these yellow merchants, 
Lue King, has lived here thirteen years, has 
worked hard all his life, saved his money, 
and invested it all in Seattle, owning real 
estate and goods worth fifteen thousand dol- 
lars. He said to the reporter, "I never saw 
such a world as this. If the people were going 
to drive us out, they should have said so before 
we invested our money here. A great many 
white men owe us money, and won't pay ; what 



212 



THE people's CHRIST 



are we to do ? I don't think this is right. It 
looks as if the Chinamen have no protection 
under the law. While I was in Canton a white 
man got in trouble with a China steward on 
board a ship that was in the harbor. The white 
man kicked the Chinaman to death. Many 
Chinamen went to the wharf to capture the for- 
eigner, but the captain moved the ship out into 
the harbor, and they couldn't get at him. The 
infuriated Chinamen burned the wharf, which 
belonged to the white man, and burned two 
houses also belonging to white men. The 
Chinese government sent troops and captured 
all the leaders of the mob that burned the build- 
ings, and cut their heads off ; and the Chinese 
government paid the white men for all the 
property destroyed. But here they burn the 
Chinamen's property, and then arrest the China- 
men for doing it. They waited till the China- 
men were all killed, and then talked about 
sending for troops." 

What a terrible commentary we are giving 
this intelligent heathen man upon the compara- 
tive worth of our civilization ! Gee Hee, of the 
firm of Wah Chong & Co., who have perhaps 
one hundred thousand dollars invested in this 
city, said, " The Americans are not as bad as 
those from other countries. I think after a 
while the foreigners will drive all the Americans 



THE LITTLE YELLOW MAN'S CLAIM 213 

off the Pacific Coast." There is in this speech 
of Gee Hee food for a good deal of sober 
reflection. It is well worth our consideration 
whether the paupers and criminals of Europe 
are not a more dangerous class of immigrants 
than the little yellow men from the Orient. If 
it be necessary to doubly bolt and bar the west- 
ern gateway to the sea, is it safe to leave wide 
open the eastern entrance to the coming of the 
human sewage of London, Berlin, or Dublin? 
Shall we violate all the principles of our 
national history in order to keep the Chinaman 
out, and carefully hold his place open for the 
worst of our own race, and welcome them to it 
with open arms ? 

The editor of the Overland Monthly wisely 
says that in the cruel persecution of the 
Chinese we have " simply the savagery of that 
class of human beings, who, in the midst of every 
civilized society, especially that of old countries, 
have managed to remain savages still, possibly 
more depraved and brutalized by their artificial 
life in the midst of civilization. Such men 
come from Europe to our new land abundantly, 
and become citizens in good and regular stand- 
ing ; they never doubt that, with all their coarse 
ignorance and brutality, they are by divine right 
superior to the most learned and virtuous China- 
man or Japanese that ever spent his days and 



214 



THE people's CHRIST 



nights in study, or sacrificed his whole fortune 
to a scruple of honor or an impulse of patriotism." 

If you have a heart, read the following, taken 
from the interviews alluded to above : " In a 
room adjoining the restaurant was a China boy 
whose eyes were red and face swollen. The 
reporter asked him what the trouble was. Foo 
Kee said, ' Ah Kee has been crying all day. A 
man told him the Chinamen had been driven 
out at Tacoma, and some had died. He has 
some friends there, and he is afraid some of 
them have been abused and are dead.' " Now 
remember that these men who are being thus 
treated came here under protection of the most 
solemn treaties of the United States Government. 
They are not criminals, paupers, or vagrants. 
They are not drunkards, strikers, or rioters. 
They are quiet, law-abiding, industrious men, 
whose only crime against mankind is that God 
gave them an olive-colored skin. Many of them 
are devoted inquirers after Jesus. At the last 
session of the Puget Sound Annual Conference, 
held in Tacoma, there was dedicated a beautiful 
chapel for our Chinese mission. It was filled 
with an intelligent and interested Chinese audi- 
ence. A keen-faced young Chinese gentleman, 
Mr. Chan Hon Chan, was received into the Con- 
ference as an itinerant preacher. This young 
man was born of a Methodist mother, in China, 



THE LITTLE YELLOW MAN's CLAIM 215 

and was brought to tlie baptismal altar of the 
Church in his infancy. He is a most devoted 
Christian minister. To-day that Chinese chapel 
in Tacoma stands desolate. The worshippers 
are gone. They were driven by an armed mob 
from their homes. Their dwellings, store-build- 
ings, goods, etc., to the amount of many tens of 
thousands of dollars, were burned to the ground. 
And yet this is in Christian America, and under 
the stars and stripes ! 

Such deeds are on a par with the expulsion 
of the Moors from Spain, or the Huguenots 
from France. Ought Christians to look on in 
silence ? 

[Published in the Western Christian Advocate, March 24, 
1886.] 



216 



THE people's CHUIST 



VI 

A SUNDAY WITH THE ANTI-CHINESE 
MOB IN SEATTLE 

O UNDAY, Feb. T, 1886, will ever be a memor- 
^ able, if not an honorable day, in the history 
of the " Queen City of Puget Sound." In the 
gray dawn, a little band of fifteen men, headed 
by the chief of police, marched into the Chinese 
quarter, situated in the heart of the city, and 
stopped before a Chinese store. The police 
officer, by virtue of his office, demanded and 
obtained admission. If you had asked them 
their business, they would have told you they 
were a committee, appointed at an anti-Chinese 
mass-meeting held the evening before under 
the auspices of the " Knights of Labor," and 
that their purpose was to see if the " Cubic Air 
Ordinance " was obeyed. They entered, took 
measurements, and numbered the inhabitants of 
the building. Then, coming out, they entered 
the next building to do likewise. Before the 
first door could be closed, however, another 
committee, already numbering a hundred or 



SUNDAY WITH THE ANTI-CHINESE MOB 217 



more, and constantly increasing, pressed in. 
This second committee was simply a mob. 
Gathered from the brothels, mines, and logging- 
camps of the entire Sound, were a great body of 
men who had been brought together by the 
secret organization referred to above, for the 
express purpose of driving out the Chinese. 
In the early light of this Sabbath morning, 
while all good citizens were sleeping, the police 
force delivered the city over into the reckless 
hands of these vicious men and abandoned 
women. 

Following the first committee, they ordered 
the startled, half-dressed Chinese to remove 
immediately to the ocean dock. In order to 
expedite matters, these self-ordained committee- 
men began gathering up goods and boxes and 
placing them upon the sidewalk or street. 
Soon hacks and drays, previously engaged, 
began to arrive, and bedding, bundles, and boxes 
were piled into them and driven to the wharf. 
Some of the Chinese were awed into quiet sub- 
mission by the presence of the vast crowd of 
rough men, and set tremblingly to work to do 
as they were bidden. These received nothing 
worse than curses, or at most an occasional kick 
to increase their speed. But others were not so 
easily overcome. Some of them were business 
men, and had accounts all over the city. This 



•21^ THE people's CHRIST 

was especially true of laundries. Many of the 
men engaged in the mob were indebted to the 
Chinamen for washing; some of them from 
twenty to fifty dollars, and one man seventy 
dollars. The Chinamen were not allowed to 
deliver the clothes in the laundries, and by noon 
on Sunday thousands of dollars worth of cloth- 
ing had been stolen and carried away by the 
mob. When these men were brave enough to 
resist, summary measures were used. Some of 
them were knocked down with biQets of wood, 
and kicked and cuffed till they were tractable 
enough to carry their swollen and bloody faces 
to the wharf after their meeker brethren. Some 
were dragged from their rooms down a flight of 
stairs by the hair of the head. One of the 
noblest ladies of the city tearfully related to 
me how she saw two men thrown through a 
window into the mingled mass of mud and 
stones on the street. One man, a very intel- 
ligent, thoroughly educated gentleman, was 
dragged from a sick-bed, and told to go to the 
dock. He had been on friendly terms with a local 
journalist, and he went to him and said, " I am 
sick. I have been sick for a week, and am not 
able to ?o to-dav. I am wiUingr to leave. I do not 
want to live among such people. I will gladly 
go if I can have a few days to recruit my health 
and settle my business.'' His friend endeavored 
to intercede for him, but in vain. 



SUNDAY WITH THE ANTE-CHINESE MOB 219 

This mail, a cultivated gentleman in every 
sense of the phrase, in infirm health, was driven 
to the damp wharf and herded there with the 
rest, without fire or food for a night and a 
day. 

About the time the congregations in the 
churches were being dismissed from the morn- 
ing service, there was driven through the streets 
of this Christian city, a heathen lady, the wife 
of a merchant, and richly but modestly attired. 
Around her was a hooting mob, pelting her with 
stones, and applying to the shrinking, timorous 
woman every vile and vulgar epithet that their 
tongues, long skilled in slimy vocabulary, had 
learned. She was crying as if her heart would 
break, and a little rill of crimson blood trickled 
down from an ugly gash made by a cruel blow 
on her brow. This scene, remember, was enacted 
on Sunday, in Christian America, in the year of 
our Lord 1886 ! 

On sped the hours of that holy day. When 
the sun went down behind the great white 
Olympics, there were three hundred and fifty 
human beings huddled into the damp, wide pen 
on the ocean dock. Some were stolid with 
despair, some were sobbing quietly, some moan- 
ing in a low monotony of woe ; others were 
quiet from fright, and shrank down beside their 
little bundle of clothes, all they had been able 



220 



THE people's CHRIST 



to save out of years of hard, honest work and 
self-denymg economy. 

The darkness of Sabbath night closed down 
at last with the mob still m possession of the 
city. This is all I started out to tell you. How 
the governor's proclamation was read from the 
pulpits in the midst of the sermon ; how preach- 
ers and class-leaders, deacons and stewards, 
answered the call, and marched into line that 
Sunday afternoon ; how at midnight they took 
possession of the dock, and at midday a little 
band of less than two hundred stood between 
their frightened charge and a vicious, yelling, 
shouting mob of two thousand; how these gal- 
lant Home Guards finally rescued the city from 
the lawless and sustained the law, — all this the 
quick-speaking telegraph has long since told 
to all the world. All that and more has passed 
into history. It was only my purpose to give 
you a rude outline picture of that awful Sunday, 
the sights and sounds of which I shall carry 
with me to my dying hour. No pen can de- 
scribe, no brush paint in their real colors, the 
shameful, humiliating deeds of a day which 
deserves to be remembered among " the days 
of barbarism on Puget Sound." 

[Published in Central Christian Advocate, March 3, 1886.] 



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